At the federal level, we seek to make hunger and dietary health equal priorities in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by leveraging bipartisan reports, the forthcoming 2018 Farm Bill, and state efforts to enact SNAP policy changes that promote incentives, disincentives, and other policy strategies to make healthier food choices easier.
Friedman experts are currently providing key counsel to a new Bipartisan Policy Center task force exploring policy options for using SNAP and SNAP-Ed to combat poor nutrition, improve health, and reduce health care costs.
SNAP, the nation’s largest feeding program, is a critical and underutilized lever for nutrition change. It is our most important and successful remaining safety net program, feeding 1 in 8 Americans, almost half of whom (20 million) are children. This program makes up more than half of USDA’s $140 billion annual budget and could reach close to $1 trillion of food spending over the next decade.
To place this in context, the $70 billion/year invested in SNAP exceeds the annual budgets of the NIH, FDA, and CDC combined. The nutritional consequences of SNAP have evolved substantially since the program’s inception. This is an opportune time to realign the program’s goals with improving nutrition.
SNAP was enacted 50 years ago to end hunger and calorie‐protein malnutrition among poor Americans. While we can celebrate the near elimination of primary calorie‐protein malnutrition in the U.S., it has been replaced with ongoing food insecurity and an epidemic of obesity and diet‐related chronic diseases among those who are food insecure. We feel it is time to measure the success of SNAP by both its impact on hunger/food insecurity and nutritional health.
In addition to benefiting the millions of low‐income Americans on SNAP, altering the incentives for SNAP purchases has been demonstrated to shift the food environments in stores, helping to improve community access to healthier foods for millions more of their neighbors. The program also goes beyond reducing food insecurity, it encourages recipients to cook more meals at home which can help strengthen family bonds to create a greater sense of community.
As you read more about our expertise and activities in both food policy and public impact at the School, we look forward to continuing our fight for a healthier food system.