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Obesity is one of the leading health challenges in the U.S., and as the month of September rapidly approaches, Congressional leaders will again be faced with a one-in-five-year chance to negotiate funding levels for SNAP, Americas' largest food relief program. As it stands, Congress is careening toward this deadline without a clear plan to solve a decades-long problem: the billion-dollar federal government subsidization of sugar sweetened beverages and junk food in the SNAP program.
This isn't a new problem, and in fact, it's not even a partisan one. For years, public health officials and politicians on both sides of the aisle have pointed to the fact that more than 42 percent of American adults, and nearly 20 percent of children are obese, leaving the U.S. with the highest obesity rate in the world among nations with at least 5 million people.
It's no secret what is contributing to these trends: unhealthy desserts, snacks, and sugary beverages, and yet ironically, soft drinks, potato chips, sweetened beverages, desserts, and candy, are among the top items purchased with SNAP benefits. This amounts to a direct government transfer of billions of taxpayer dollars to fund the unhealthy food that is likely making Americans obese.
It's time for Congress to end SNAP funding for non-nutritious foods, and to do this, we must first address the criticism to this proposal and then use the tools we have as leaders in Congress to make SNAP a nutritious program for the millions of Americans who depend on it.
Addressing The Criticism
Critics of the proposal to end government funded junk food in the SNAP program will often say that obesity is a national problem and not one restricted to those in poverty. On its face, this is true: Obesity is certainly a national problem. But mountains of research shows that SNAP participants experience serious health issues and at much higher rates when compared to other low-income Americans.
Across the board, SNAP participants were found to eat fewer vegetables and have a higher risk of disease when compared to other Americans. Research conducted by the USDA found that adults receiving SNAP had lower healthy eating scores and were more likely to struggle with both obesity and high blood pressure.
Harvard researchers also found that SNAP participants consumed 46 percent more servings of unhealthy food and among certain demographics, and SNAP participants consumed 61 percent more sugar-sweetened beverages than non-participants.
Ironically, SNAP was authorized in Congress to "promote the general welfare, and to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation's population by raising levels of nutrition among low-income households." But with these alarming statistics, we can no longer in good conscience continue giving billions of taxpayer dollars to a program that is now doing the exact opposite of "safeguarding" health.
Solving this Problem Legislatively
In 2021 alone, more than 40 million Americans benefited from SNAP; almost half of those beneficiaries were children. This makes SNAP the largest food relief program in America and the reason why we must end the federal government subsidization of unhealthy food in the program.
As chairman of the House subcommittee that decides USDA's annual budget, we've included funding in this year's spending bill to allow states to create pilot programs that restrict SNAP purchases to nutrient-dense foods. Over the past 20 years, cities and states have asked USDA for permission to restrict SNAP purchases of sugary drinks, but each time the USDA has denied their requests.
This year, USDA has expressed interest in designing a pilot to measure the impact of restricting SNAP purchases, so I am suggesting we give the Department funding and direction to do so. While this is a first step in the right direction, we hope our colleagues negotiating the Farm Bill, the only opportunity to make major changes to the SNAP program, will decide to restrict unhealthy SNAP purchases nationally.
Congressman Andy Harris, M.D. is the current Chairman of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies subcommittee on Appropriations. He represents Maryland's First Congressional District.
Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks is a member the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where she sits on the Subcommittee on Health and the Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Minerals, as well as the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, where she serves as Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Health.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
