The CDC just dropped its biggest teen health survey in two years, and the headline was that kids are eating more vegetables and playing more sports. What it quietly did not mention: LGBTQ youth, who are statistically among the most at-risk teens in the country, and who were surveyed but then disappeared from the published results entirely. That's not an oversight. That's a choice.
The Report RFK Jr. Wanted
The CDC published its 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey results on Monday, and if you read the official framing, things are looking up. More teens are eating fruits and vegetables daily. More are drinking water regularly. Fifty-eight percent played on a sports team in 2025, up from 52% in 2023. Fewer students reported persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, or poor mental health overall compared to two years ago.
NBC News reports that CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jennifer Shuford said the findings "align with the Make America Healthy Again initiative led by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy." She said this out loud, at a press event, apparently without any hesitation about how that sounds coming from what is supposed to be an independent public health agency. Kennedy, for his part, restored the presidential fitness test in schools this year and pushed new dietary guidelines targeting ultraprocessed food. The report reads like a press release for both of those moves.
Good News for Whom, Exactly?
Here is where it gets uncomfortable. The overall mental health numbers did improve. During the Biden years, the same survey flagged a genuinely alarming trend: persistent sadness or hopelessness among high school girls peaked at 57% in 2021 during the pandemic, dropped to 53% in 2023, and now sits at 43% in 2025. That is real progress, and it is worth taking seriously.
But the new report deliberately shifted away from sex-specific breakdowns and erased demographic granularity almost entirely. No breakdown by race. No breakdown by sexual orientation. And critically, according to NBC News, no mention whatsoever of LGBTQ youth, a group that consistently shows significantly higher rates of poor mental health and suicidal ideation than their peers.
Ariel Beccia, a research scientist at Boston Children's Hospital, put it plainly to NBC News: "Overall, we see things are getting better, but for who? Oftentimes, it's the more advantaged groups." When your methodology buries the most vulnerable populations inside an aggregate average, you can make almost any trend look like a success story.
They Had the Data. They Just Didn't Use It.
This is the part that should make you put down your coffee and stare at the wall for a moment. The LGBTQ data exists. NBC News reports that the 2025 survey did include a question about transgender identity, just as the 2023 survey did when it asked students about that for the first time. The data was collected. Researchers answered questions. And then the published report simply did not address any of it.
This is not new behavior from this administration. The Trump administration previously scrubbed references to the transgender portion of this exact survey from a CDC webpage after Trump ordered federal agencies to remove language associated with what he called "gender ideology." A federal judge ordered the administration to restore those pages. They complied, technically, and then structured the next public report so none of that data would appear in the summary anyway.
CDC's acting director for adolescent and school health, Mike Underwood, explained on a press call that "the intent of this report was to provide a high-level snapshot of youth health behaviors for all youth." All youth, except the ones whose numbers might complicate the narrative.
What Went Missing Besides LGBTQ Data
Beccia also flagged other conspicuous absences. She told NBC News she expected the report to address the social and economic factors that determine whether teens can actually eat healthy foods in the first place, things like whether there is a grocery store within reach of where they live. A report that celebrates increased fruit and vegetable consumption without asking why some kids have no access to either is measuring vibes, not public health.
The social media data did make the cut, at least. Around one in three students report using social media at least every hour, a figure that has held roughly steady over the last few years. Dr. Aaron Reliford, clinical director of the Child Study Center at NYU Langone, told NBC News he appreciated the nutrition and physical activity focus, and pointed out that getting kids off their phones and moving more does have real mental health benefits. That is fair. It is also not the whole picture, and a federal health agency's job is to give you the whole picture, not the politically convenient slice of it.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to believe that a public health report is credible when it surveys LGBTQ youth on their mental health and then publishes results that do not mention LGBTQ youth at all. You are supposed to read "high-level snapshot for all youth" and not notice that some youth got snapshotted right out of the document. The CDC's own chief medical officer went on record saying the findings "align" with a political initiative run by the sitting health secretary. That is not science communication. That is a press release with a government seal on it.
The actual good news in this report is real. Mental health numbers improving for teenagers broadly is not nothing, and more kids playing sports and eating vegetables is genuinely fine. But public health data only works when it is honest about who is still struggling, and erasing the demographic breakdowns that would show you which groups are being left behind is not a methodology choice. It is a cover-up dressed as simplification.
RFK Jr. got the report he wanted. Kids eating broccoli, kids playing soccer, the MAHA brand validated in a federal document. What he did not want, and what consequently does not appear anywhere, is data showing that LGBTQ teenagers are in crisis while the administration responsible for their welfare is actively working to pretend they do not exist. That is not healthy. For anyone.
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