Small Investments, Big Returns

For the past several years, it seems like there's a story about increasing obesity levels and poor diet everywhere you look. For good reason: the social costs of rising obesity rates are immense; one estimate suggested that 21% of all medical costs are related to obesity. Many factors are at work in creating this crisis, but poor diet is high on the list. 

Results of two studies released this week offer a path towards healthier diets and lower obesity rates.

First, the Food and Nutrition Service of USDA published results of studies of the effectiveness of nutrition education. Specifically, the study followed up with participants of various SNAP-Ed programs. SNAP-Ed provides nutrition and cooking education to people receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps). They found that education focused on the value of eating more fruits and vegetables led to an increase of fruit and vegetable consumption among participants. So investing in nutrition education pays off in healthier diets.

Then, NPR reported results of a Harvard School of Public Health study about just how much cost difference there is between a healthy diet and an unhealthy diet. The answer? A dollar-fifty a day. That small sum can provide enough buying power to purchase leaner meats, more fruits and vegetables, and more whole grains. And over the course of a year? That's just $550! For people living in poverty, that may well be a prohibitive amount, but as the NPR article points out, it's not a lot from a policy perspective or when compared to the long-term costs of high obesity rates.

These results suggest that increasing SNAP benefits and continuing to support SNAP-Ed programs in every community have the potential to change the face of long-term health in this country. Unfortunately, Congress is poised to do the exact opposite. SNAP funding is on the chopping block to the tune of $40 billion in cuts in the on-going debate over the Farm Bill re-authorization. This is a short-term view. Yes, cutting these costs now might mean a more balanced budget this year, but those costs will come back to haunt us in the form of heart disease, diabetes, knee replacements, high blood pressure, and all the other obesity-related chronic illnesses.

Affordable: The Reality of SNAP Cuts

In a letter to Congress in May, 1969, President Richard Nixon wrote:

"We have long thought of the United States as the most bounteous of nations. In our conquest of the most elemental of human needs, we have set a standard that is a wonder and aspiration for the rest of the world. Our agricultural system produces more food than we can consume, and our private food market is the most effective food distribution system ever developed. So accustomed are most of us to a full and balanced diet that, until recently, we have thought of hunger and malnutrition as problems only in far less fortunate countries.

"But in the past few years we have awakened to the distressing fact that despite our material abundance and agricultural wealth, many Americans suffer from malnutrition....That hunger and malnutrition should persist in a land such as ours is embarrassing and intolerable."

In this letter, President Nixon called for improvements to what is now called SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), urged a new model of nutrition assistance for mothers and children (that became WIC), and called for food processors and distributors to join this fight for improved nutrition across the country.

Forty-four years later, hunger and malnutrition are still affecting millions of Americans. SNAP now serves one in seven Americans, mostly children.

Now, in the effort to cut government spending to the bone, a 2009 increase in SNAP benefits has expired and Congress shows no intention to reinstate it. For many people still struggling from the recession and the continued lack of jobs, the cut to their SNAP benefits may leave empty plates on dinner tables. For families already living in poverty, a reduction of just 20 or 30 dollars can make the big difference.

Our agricultural production has more than kept pace with population growth. In 2006, American farmers produced enough food for each person to consume 3,900 calories per day, almost double the recommended caloric intake for an adult. And yet, not everyone is getting the bare minimum.

Surely, if it was "embarrassing and intolerable" for hunger to exist in our country (or our world, which also produces more calories than needed to feed everyone) in 1969, it is even more true now. The reality of the SNAP cuts are that more people will go hungry; food banks will be busier than ever, but unable to make up the shortfall; and stores in under-served areas that rely on SNAP purchases will suffer. 

The most important part of that is that more people will go hungry. And that is embarrassing and intolerable.