A call to document harms from nutrition policy changes and to fight for families
In a recent interview on the implications of changes to federal nutrition policies, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Sara Bleich called for health professionals, researchers, and advocates to document harms caused by these changes and to fight to help families keep their benefits.
Bleich, professor of health policy, served in the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Obama and Biden administrations. On the Feb. 4 episode of the Sound Bites podcast, she provided an overview of federal nutrition assistance programs including SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and school meals, which collectively serve one in four Americans over the course of a year.
She expressed concerns about recent changes to SNAP, including a $186 billion budget cut through 2034 and stricter work requirements for parents of school-aged children over 14 and for older adults.
She also said that changes in the government’s recently updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans may prove confusing for consumers and difficult for schools to implement in meals they serve.
For those who would like to address these policy changes, Bleich suggested providing clarity to the public around evidence-based nutrition and changes to SNAP, and pushing for administrative changes at the state level—and she stressed the urgent need to fight for low-income families who need food assistance.
“One of the ways that you change policy is that you document harm and you document impacts,” she said. Work is now underway by researchers to understand the effects of changes to nutrition programs and the dietary guidelines, she said, adding, “When there’s an opportunity for a new way of thinking about things, a new type of policy, we will be poised with the right information.”
Listen to Sound Bites podcast: SNAP, School Meals, New DGAs: What’s Changing & Why It Matters – Dr. Sara Bleich
Learn more
Understanding the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans (Harvard Chan School news)
Pressure not off for SNAP recipients (Harvard Chan School news)
