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A just-released paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found substantial negative long-term effects down the line when children consume excessive amounts of sugar. The authors of the study, Paul Gertler and Tadeja Gracner, found that when children consume excessive sugar early in life, it leads to chronic inflammation, diabetes, elevated cholesterol and even arthritis. It also decreased the likelihood a person had of completing post-secondary schooling, having a skilled occupation, or accumulating above median wealth.
The Obama Administration had an opportunity to combat this problem. A detailed 2016 report from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the food-stamp program, found that almost 10 percent of household food-stamp expenditures were on sweetened beverages and another 10 percent on desserts, salty snacks, candy and sugar.
As a result, Maine, Minnesota, New York City, and others recommended excluding sweetened beverages from the list of foods you could buy with food-stamps. Rather than supporting these restrictions, Michelle Obama, whose project as First Lady was fighting obesity, focused her efforts on promoting fresh fruits and vegetables by increasing the value of the food stamps spent on healthy items. Yet researchers found that the incentive program had no effect on obesity rates. They also found that banning sugary drinks would "significantly reduce obesity prevalence and Type 2 diabetes incidence, particularly among ages 18 to 65 and some racial and ethnic minorities."
What could explain Michelle Obama's silence on food-stamp regulations? Perhaps it was because it smacked of paternalism, especially in the Black community where levels of obesity and diabetes are high. Too often, public health blames these ailments on poverty or structural racism rather than dietary choices. New York City's COVID-19 website, for example, claims that, "Differences in health outcomes among racial and ethnic groups are due to long-term structural racism, not biological or personal traits."
Unfortunately, poverty is not a sufficient explanation, which becomes clear when you compare Black and Hispanic rates of obesity. Though both communities struggle with poverty, the CDC estimated that the prevalence of obesity was 11.3 percent higher among Black Americans than Latinos. Another study found that 14.6 percent of adult Black Americans suffered from extreme obesity compared to 9.7 percent of Latinos. A Medicare survey found that Black enrollees were 17.5 percent more likely to have diabetes than Latino enrollees. Another CDC study found that among 65- and 75-year-olds, Black Americans averaged 30 and 24 percent higher rates than Latinos respectively.
Unfortunately, taking personal behaviors off the table is a consistent pattern when assessing many large adverse racial disparities, including the disproportionately higher gun violence and homicide rates in Black neighborhoods, the dramatically lower academic performance of Black fourth graders, and the higher suspension rates of Black youth.
Instead of addressing these behaviors and helping these children access the American Dream, we are told that we should decriminalize gun possession for young Black men, as they need weapons to protect themselves in lawless neighborhoods. We're told the implicit biases of teachers explain the adverse educational performance and perceived behavioral problems of Black students. And of course, any reference to the disproportionate share of Black children living in households without their biological father present is a racist justification for the impact of white supremacy on Black lives.
Despite the inflamed rhetoric, contemporary racial barriers and racist behaviors are dramatically lower than in past decades. They cannot be the primary reason for these racial disparities. As a result, we must look more critically at Black behaviors and enact policies to help change them.
There are non-paternalistic ways to do this, like an incentive program a Nashville school used to improve student attendance. Warner Elementary School set up a store that had basic food and household items. Every student at the school would get five "Warner Bucks" for every day they came to school. Their families could then use these dollars to buy items from the Warner Exchange.
The principal estimated that it reduced chronic absenteeism from 42 percent to 28 percent.
Liberals have no problem outlawing menthol-flavored cigarettes that disproportionately affect Black smokers. They should be even more willing to support food stamp restrictions for health reasons. Hopefully, the new Congress will act.
Robert Cherry is an American Enterprise Institute affiliate and author of the forthcoming book, The State of the Black Family: The Facts and Data That Underscore Decades of Policy Failures (Bombardier).
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
