The Current Proposed Bills Won't Address Systemic Challenges to Eating Well
Key Highlights :
The current proposed bills to modify the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are blunt instruments that don't address the systemic challenges to eating well. In May, Senator Marco Rubio (R.- Fla) proposed an amendment to SNAP which would prevent recipients of the program from buying soft drinks, candy, ice cream, and prepared desserts such as cakes, pies, cookies or similar products. He argued that more than 40 percent of U.S. adults are obese, and roughly half have diabetes or prediabetes, and that SNAP plays a role in their spread.
In June, freshman Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) introduced "The Healthy SNAP ACT," which serves as companion legislation to Rubio's proposed amendment and would similarly exclude sweets and other dessert items from being bought using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. While the intention of these bills may be to safeguard the nutritional health of Americans, the reality is that they are not addressing the systemic challenges to eating well.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture has met to discuss banning certain items from being eligible for purchase under SNAP in both 2016 and 2017. In 2019, Texas lawmakers proposed legislation to restrict food stamp users from buying soda, energy drinks, cookies and desserts. The USDA has consistently rejected those waiver requests, citing difficulty and inconsistency in implementing a junk food ban in just one state.
The underlying motivations for these bills are twofold. The first is a sincere motivation to increase the health of everyday Americans, while the second is a belief that tax dollars shouldn't pay for non-nutritious food. However, there are a lot of problems with allowing states to enact "piecemeal junk food bans" as they have different definitions of what constitutes "junk food."
What these bills fail to take into account are several key details from the 2016 USDA study which found that non-SNAP households spend 19.7% of their grocery budget on junk food, which is on par with SNAP households. Additionally, the data used for the study captured only transactions completed at a specific set of retail outlets and so is not a complete representation of the whole picture.
The reality is that the proposed bills don't address the systemic challenges to eating well. Americans are heavily reliant on a poor-quality, highly processed food supply that is damaging our health. To truly address the issue, there needs to be more comprehensive reforms such as increasing access to healthy food, improving food education, and incentivizing people to make healthier choices.
Ultimately, the proposed bills are a blunt instrument that won't address the systemic challenges to eating well. To truly address the issue, there needs to be more comprehensive reforms that focus on increasing access to healthy food, improving food education, and incentivizing people to make healthier choices.
