Invest in SNAP to ensure all Americans can eat real food, expert says
The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans emphasize that people should eat “real food” and avoid ultra-processed food. That’s a goal nutrition researchers can get behind, but it may currently be out of reach for many people receiving food assistance, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Cindy Leung.
Speaking on the Jan. 15 episode of Horizons from PBS News, Leung, associate professor of public health, called for changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and at the grocery store in order to ensure that all Americans are able to eat a healthy diet.
Leung studies the food landscape for lower-income Americans. She said that people who use SNAP have a general understanding of what foods are healthy but feel like they have limited choices at the grocery store. “They have to make everything fit within a small budget,” Leung said. “And they’re sacrificing things that might take longer to cook for things that are more convenient just to fit into what they can work with for that week.”
Leung noted that SNAP benefits are based on the Thrifty Food Plan, a model for a low-cost nutritious diet set by the government that “assumes that you have unlimited time to go shop, prepare, cook food, and it’s really unrealistic for a lot of Americans.” Most people’s benefits run out well before the end of the month, she added.
She said that she would have liked to have seen changes to SNAP that have restricted recipients in many states from using their benefits to buy sugary products paired with investments in the program that would allow people to buy more healthy foods.
Parents on SNAP feel guilty that they can’t feed their children healthy food, she said. She’s heard parents in her studies describe, for example, considering buying a $5 box of whole-grain high fiber cereal but opting instead to spend the same amount of money on multiple boxes of sweet highly processed cereal. It lasts longer and they know their kids are going to eat it, but it makes them feel like terrible parents, she said.
“I think the message is great to eat whole foods,” Leung said. “I would love to see that translate into changes at the grocery store.”
Watch the Horizons episode: MAHA has a plan to clean up the American diet. Will it work?
