Healthify your supermarket choices.
Do Food Stamps Really Contribute to Obesity?
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A recent study published Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research says YES.
The findings:
the average user of food stamps had a Body Mass Index (BMI) 1.15 points higher than non-users. The link between food stamps and higher weight was almost entirely based on women users, who averaged 1.24 points higher BMI than those not in the program, the study found. For an average American woman, this would mean an increase in weight of 5.8 pounds.
The study also found that people’s BMI increased faster when they were on food stamps than when they were not, and increased more the longer they were in the program.
“We can’t prove that the Food Stamp Program causes weight gain, but this study suggests a strong linkage,” said Jay Zagorsky, co-author of the study
Without getting into the specifics here, one thing is certain – the poorer you are, the lower your chances of eating healthily. Whereas one hundred years ago the poor starved to death, many are now literally being stuffed to obesity.
What you need to know:
The food stamp program, now officially called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) serves more than 10% of the US population (over 31 million people). Half are children 18 and younger. The program is administered by the USDA.
There are no limitations on what food people can buy (tobacco and alcohol are excluded) and no incentives to buy healthy foods over processed and junk foods.
Unfortunately, many people spend the limited allowance on the cheaper, prepared, tummy filling products that tend to be high in fat, sodium, and sugar, but low in essential nutrients such as fiber, vitamins and minerals.
Is it because of food stamps, or are food stamps an indicator? This is a chicken and egg question that we don’t wish to address. What we’d like to see is how the USDA restructures support programs to empower the recipients to improve their food purchases.
Just imagine if the program created a financial benefit to purchase more fresh fruit and vegetables, bulk grains, and other less processed products. Combining such an incentive along with nutrition education and food preparation education could help people on alow budget eat healthfully.
You don’t need to be rich to eat well (though it certainly helps). If you are financially challenged, you will need to invest time in finding the cheaper yet nutritious products (usually unprocessed) and then more time in preparing meals at home.
What to do at the supermarket:
Buy more fruits and vegetables. Fresh, frozen, or even canned.
Stop buying soft drinks. A family of four switching to water can save $500 a year.
Instead of buying prepared meals filled with sodium, fat, and additives, learn to prepare your own dishes. There are plenty of simple recipes and resources to learn from on the web.
More suggestions here.
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Do we know whether the report’s authors controlled for income? This would be a simple way to determine whether it was the Food Stamps program or the poverty to blame.
I know you “don’t want to address” the question, but it is a very important one, with real consequences for the anti-hunger movement.
yes.
While the researchers did compare “people who lived in the same counties, to take into account that there may be local factors that affect obesity rates,” for someone on food stamps, who may not be able to afford a car, the other side of the county can be a long ways away. Good grocery stores are often not available in low income areas– areas in West Philly and West Baltimore both had a lack of them (or even NONE at all) until very recent years.
Someone who is just scraping by doesn’t have the time to travel by public transportation to the other side of the city to the market, and in an urban setting often won’t have a yard much less a place in which to plant a garden and grow their own food. It’s easy to say that they just don’t know any better than eating potato chips and drinking soda, but if you really think about it, who wants to carry giant bags of groceries (for your whole family) on a public bus across the entire city every week?
Also, 3rd and 2nd shift jobs often are the ones that pay less, and even if there is a market nearby, it may not be open when these families get home from work. Not all markets are 24hours, but 7-Eleven is usually open late.
This is kind of long and ranty- but it frustrates me when people immediately turn to “educate them, they obviously just don’t know how to feed themselves” rather than considering real life factors that probably come into play. Education probably IS part of the answer, but first we need to really analyze the access that people on food stamps have to quality, healthy foods.
Excellent points. Availability of healthy options near home, and at relevant hours is important no less than education.
Another factor is time and knowledge. Sometimes, especially in families that have been using food stamps for generations, they may not know HOW to cook healthy foods from scratch. For many, dry mixes, instant rice, instant mashed potatoes, canned beans and vegetables, etc. ARE home-cooking. As salt, sugar, and starch-laden as those mixes are, they’re not much better than fast food. And, they are marketed as time savers – if you have to take an hour bus ride to get home, and then fix dinner, clean up, and get kids ready for bed and school the next day, you take any time-saver you can.