MAHA mothers: information manipulation and sexism

As Archimedes said, give me an acronym and I'll move the world (in the media, at least). In the wake of the Trumpian MAGA movement (Make America Great Again) has emerged as a sort of Women's Section calling itself MAHA, an acronym for Make America Healthy Again. This coalition is made up of non-orthodox nutritionists, shamans of various stripes, and, really, anyone who wants to join. One of its most significant victories is getting Coca-Cola in the United States to offer a version sweetened with cane sugar instead of the usual high-fructose corn syrup. All of this is a distraction like any other, because it hasn't been scientifically proven that the metabolic effects of the two sugars on the liver are substantially different, nor that the higher fructose content of the syrup is significant enough to generate additional health problems. If you abuse cane sugar, even if it's less processed, you have the same chance of ending up developing obesity or diabetes, nutritionists say.

In any case, from a news perspective, what's relevant is that conservative networks like Fox News are already calling on MAHA mothers as experts to weigh in on these petty battles (and not extra virgin olive oil). They don't need to prove any knowledge: they just need to present a certain profile and have a somewhat sharp dialectic. Where there should be a scientist, there's now someone brandishing self-appointed acronyms. If we add to this the underlying narrative of this sinister movement, which is to return women to what they consider their natural habitat—behind the stove and under the aprons—we're already served a new regressive sexist drift. With ice, lemon, and cane sugar, of course.