American children are the sickest children in the developed world.
Posted by The Joe Rogan Experience, Checked
- Sources
- 5 support2 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 60%
The Joe Rogan ExperienceNov 6, 2026
The claim concerns the developed world, not history. Sources comparing U.S. children with peer high-income countries show higher child mortality and worse chronic-disease outcomes, and a National Academies report places the U.S. at the bottom among wealthy nations on child physical health.
This claim is about the present, so it is judged as of the day it was checked.
What was said
… Tell me, let's just set the table, let's set the table about glycol, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me set the table about glyphosate in general. Uhm, America, American children are the sickest children in the developed world. We're hitting puberty much younger than we did 50 years ago, uhm, two to three years. The New York Times recently did an article to say nobody knows why. …
The Joe Rogan Experience · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. A 2025 JAMA study found U.S. children had roughly 80% higher death rates than children in 18 comparable high-income countries, with chronic disease and obesity also rising.[1][5][6]
Supports. The National Academies report says the U.S. 'ranks at the bottom among wealthy nations' on the physical health, mental wellbeing and academic skills of children.[4][7]
Context. PolitiFact and FactCheck.org rejected the claim that U.S. children are the sickest in the history of the world, noting that childhood mortality has fallen dramatically over time. That historical superlative differs from the developed-world comparison in the claim.[2][3][7]
Context. The claimant's passage is not evidence. The claim's developed-world wording matches the passage, so no extraction departure applies. The 'sickest' ranking rests on comparative indicators rather than an explicit overall ranking.
Sources
7 sources: 3 fact-checkers, 1 primary, 1 tier 2, 2 not rated
- 1US children are growing increasingly unhealthy, new study ...apnews.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports
- 2RFK Jr.'s claim that the US has the 'sickest children' in ...politifact.com · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 3FactChecking Day Two of the GOP Midterm Conventionfactcheck.org · fact-checker · cited for: context
- 4Children in the United States: Demographics, Health, and ...ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · primary source · cited for: supports
- 5Why American children are less healthy now than nearly ...pbs.org · tier 2 · cited for: supports
- 6Decline in Health Status, Higher Mortality Rates Among US ...acc.org · not rated · cited for: supports
- 7RFK Jr. says Americans have the ‘sickest children in history.' History says otherwisepoynter.org · not rated · cited for: supports, context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post