By Kelly Nuckolls, JD Candidate 2016, Drake University Law School In the fight against global hunger, the goal is to not only provide access to food for all, but to provide each person with access to healthy and nutritious food. This commitment to increase global health, set out during The Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Global Food Security Symposium 2015, included recommendations for the United States government to shape and create public policy that is at the heart of improving global health and nutrition.
The first recommendation in The Chicago Council on Global Affairs report Healthy Food for a Healthy World: Leveraging Agriculture and Food to Improve Global Nutrition includes a call to action to the US government to increase access and consumption of healthy foods through its food aid and social welfare programs. Yet, the nation’s largest food aid program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has recently been under attack. Critics and even US lawmakers have scrutinized the program, calling for reform and greater transparency.
When considering how to foster the nutritional reform of food aid programs, there are multiple questions policymakers must answer. For example, it is necessary to consider whether incentives would improve the nutritional value of SNAP participants’ food purchases, or if instead it is necessary to have stricter regulations on SNAP products. Today, one negative critique of the US’s largest domestic food aid program includes the large range of unhealthy food products SNAP participants are able to purchase with their SNAP dollars. Thus, several states have attempted to regulate SNAP food products based on health requirements.
Yet, lawmakers should analyze and weigh whether an alternative method exists—instead of stigmatizing SNAP recipients by regulating their product purchases, reimbursement incentives for healthy food purchases might be more beneficial to improving the health and nutrition of the SNAP program. Methods currently exist to increase SNAP participants’ health including the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative grants, which could be a start to increasing the health and nutritional value of SNAP food products.
An additional question for lawmakers is whether or not greater transparency is essential to improving SNAP recipients’ health. Researchers, nonprofits, and other health and nutrition professionals complain that the lack of data on SNAP product purchases is a significant barrier to improving the health and nutrition of SNAP products. These health professionals have argued the lack of data prevents them from weighing the affordability and accessibility of healthier SNAP foods. Increased transparency could also potentially decrease the stigma and even some myths about how SNAP recipients only purchase unhealthy products, and are, therefore, undeserving of this food aid. Even so, lawmakers must weigh whether or not increased transparency is the correct type of change to strengthen the SNAP program. The fact that some SNAP retailers are threatening to no longer participate in the program if certain data is released requires lawmakers to ponder whether increased transparency could instead have the reverse effect of increasing food insecurity.
These examples are only two of a plethora of questions policymakers must consider to reshape the health and nutritional value of domestic food aid programs. In addition, similar questions must be proposed for international food aid as well. While there may be nutritional flaws with domestic food aid programs, hunger and malnutrition in the US have been successfully reduced by these programs, and thus, begs the question of whether lawmakers should consider domestic food aid models to improve the overall health and nutrition of international food aid.
While there are obvious negative side-effects to certain policy reform, potential change that could improve the health and nutrition of the food aid policies must be considered. Policymakers are left to determine which policy reforms would meet the recommendations to increase the health and nutrition of US food aid policy and which reforms are at odds with this goal. In weighing what recipe of change to use, the primary goal should be to ensure the program is meeting the correct objectives: “To promote the general welfare, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s population by raising levels of nutrition among low-income households.”
References:
- 7 U.S.C. § 2011 (2012).
- Adams, John S. “Aid for Needy Debated at Capitol,” Great Falls Tribune, Jan. 24, 2015.
- Jones, Andrew D. Healthy Food for a Healthy World: Leveraging Agriculture and Food to Improve Global Nutrition. Chicago: The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2015.
- Request for Information: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): Retailer Transaction Data, 79 Fed. Reg. 149, (August 4, 2014).
- Simon, Michele. “Food Stamps: Follow the Money,” Eat Drink Politics. Accessed May 25, 2015.
- USDA. “Healthy Food Financing Initiative: Implementation Plan.” Accessed May 25, 2015.
- USDA FNS. “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Eligible Food Items.” Accessed May 25, 2015.