With the concern over obesity in this country, especially childhood obesity, who except for the beverage industry would not be concerned that our taxpayer dollars are going to subsidize one of the most high empty calorie food items on the market? Over $4 billion taxpayer dollars are used by the government to pay for sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) this last year for SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly Food Stamps). SNAP stated goal is to provide nutritional food support for the 47 million low income people it serves. The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) is meant to provide nutrition to families who cannot otherwise afford nutritional meals for their family from month to month. Continuing the use of taxpayer dollars to fund the purchase of soda through SNAP undermines the goal of SNAP and endangers the health of its recipients.
SNAP Participation
Due to the bad economy and the high unemployment rate, use of the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, the use has surged. It is no longer considered a stigma but a necessity for millions of Americans. The number of recipients has risen from 31 million in November of 2008 to 44 million in early 2011 Barnhill (2011). One in seven Americans are having to rely on SNAP benefits to try and put meals on their families tables until the end of the month. SNAP has the potential to influence the diets of 45 million participants,47% of whom are children. It is a necessary and noble cause.
Goals of SNAP are according to their website: "SNAP offers nutrition assistance to millions of eligible, low-income individuals and families and provides economic benefits to communities. SNAP is the largest...
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...timates. Health Affairs 2009; 28(5): w822-w831.
Flegal KM, Carroll MD, Kit BK, Ogden CL. (2010) Prevalence of obesity and trends in body mass index among US children and adolescents. JAMA. 2012;307(5):483-490
Food and Nutritional Services(FNS) USDA:WIC Fact Sheet (2013) retrived from http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/WIC-Fact-Sheet.pdf
Hernandez, D. C. (2012). Soda consumption among food insecure households with children: A call to restructure food assistance policy. Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk, 3(1), 1-5. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=childrenatrisk
Shenkin JD, Jacobson MF. (2011) Using the food stamp program and other methods to promote healthy diets for low-income consumers. American Journal Of Public Health; 100(9):1562-1564.
With more and more people becoming unemployed and applying for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), it is imperative that we understand the benefits as well as problems this causes. Even while researching this topic and talking to some of my family and friends about it, it surprised me the amount of those who do not understand food stamps. Coming from the SNAP website, “Food stamps offer nutritional assistance to millions of eligible low-income individuals and families and provides economic benefits to communities” (United States). This program helps millions of people per year and gives upwards of $75 billion and rising. With the prices of food increasing due to inflation, beneficiaries are receiving around $400 at most per month. Using the Electronic benefit transfer systems (EBT), beneficiaries can buy goods from a grocery store using a credit-card like transaction, which takes the money off of their card. The benefits are received monthly on a specific date and vary in amounts from person to person. One family may receive $300 per month because they have three kids and need the extra money, while another may receive $100 or less depending on financial status. The application process includes completing and filing an application form, being interviewed, and verifying facts crucial to determining eligibility. In the past, these applications did not require a drug screening to get benefits, but more and more states are adopting this. There are many drawbacks to SNAP as well such as taking money from working people’s paychecks every week and people abusing the system. Talking about a very opinionated subject, we must remove bias and answer whether or not the Food Stamp system should be limited.
Many families and people have become too dependent on food stamps. “Critics of food stamps and government spending, however, argue that too many families have become dependent on government aid.”(NoteCard #1) But if they did not have this program people would go hungry. “11.9 million people went hungry in the United States”... “that included nearly 700,000 children, up more than 50% from the year before.”(NoteCard #2, Point 2) The program does good and helps people but it also spends a lot of money to get people food stamps. “..food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in 2007, and the costa have more than doubled to $77 billion from $33 billion.”(NoteCard #5) But in the end, is it worth it? People need the assistance. It does help people from going hungry and keeps them at least with a little food in their stomach to that keeps them from starving. A lot of people who could not get jobs, were eligible for the program because they did not have a source of income. “Critics of food stamps and government spending, however, argue that too many families have become dependent on government aid.”(NoteCard #1) Since not everyone could get work, the government changed the requirements and it went for the better and for the
The federal Food Stamp Program is an assisted nutrition program that helps millions of eligible, low-income individuals and families (United States Department of Agriculture). This program gives its recipients extra money each month to try to help them have better food security. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is also the largest program in the federal safety net (United States Department of Agriculture). In Ohio’s Appalachian counties, there are 515,300 recipients which is 25.4% of the population (Job and Family Services). The Supplemental Nutrition Program is a good program except for one problem that can be fixed relatively fast and one problem that it will take a little time to solve. The problem that can be fixed right away is that the Supplemental Nutrition Program can be abused by the recipients buying junk food instead of healthy food. The problem that will take some time to fix is that some recipients make unhealthy food choices because they do not have access to a local supermarket. In order to fix these two problems the Food Stamp Program needs to better regulate what can be bought with the Food Stamp card and items in convenient stores need to be better stocked in order to keep accepting Food Stamp cards.
In the year 2015, around 40 million U.S. citizens were food insecure (Randall para. 3). Food insecurity can be defined in paragraph 3 by “[having] difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. This 12.7% of American citizens also contains another group - children. Aged 10-17, 6.8 million adolescents struggle with a food insecurity. There have been several years of cuts to the social programs designed to help these people, along with the Great Recession continuing to leave an impact on the U.S. economy (para. 6). Under the Obama administration, $8.6 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. From 1993-2001 under the Clinton administration, former President Bill Clinton’s administration “gutted the welfare system” (para. 15). Because of these budget cuts, the families who rely on food assistance from the government have been allotted less throughout the years. From a sociological perspective, the concepts of sociological imagination, class stratification, and social location are in effect when it comes to child hunger in the United States. Being hungry is an issue larger than any one individual can control.
Poverty is regarded as the major cause of food insecurity. A household food security depends on access to food. America has access to good healthy food. However, a family too poor to buy them do not enjoy food security. Rosenbaum and Neuberger (2005) report that each year the number of people using government food assistance programs grows. “Food stamps are targeted to those with the greatest need for help in purchasing food… [and] helps to lessen the extent and severity of poverty (Rosenbaum and Neuberger 2005)”.
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien, director of public policy and research at Chicago-based Second Harvest says “’we’ve seen a real shift in who we serve. A decade ago, it was almost always homeless, single men and chronic substance abusers. Now we have children and working families at soup kitchens’” (Koch). These families that are feeling the effects of food insecurity will not be only ones affected by it, but all of America. Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues.
Food insecurity can be “broadly defined as having limited access to adequate food” (Nguyen, Shuval, Bertmann, & Yaroch, 2015). While one might think that low income individuals who do not know where their next meal is coming from would be thin or underweight, many of those facing food insecurity instead struggle with obesity. This paradox may be a result of the very programs implemented to combat food insecurity in low income families. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a federal assistance program that gives money to households for food based on income and need. According to a study done by the USDA, “SNAP participants were more likely than income-eligible and higher income nonparticipants to be obese,” with SNAP participants being 40 percent more likely to be obese (2015). The problem is that even though SNAP provides resources to food insecure individuals, the food being provided is not nutritious and is thus contributing to the high rates of obesity in SNAP participants. Healthcare costs and mortality increase as more individuals become obese. Preventing these problems from happening by implementing nutrition education will increase SNAP participants’ health overall and bring down their healthcare costs.
Ogden, C.L., Carroll, M.D., Kit, B.K., & Flegal, K. M., (2012). Prevalence of obesity and
“Obesity Information.” American Heart Association Obesity Information. American heart Association, 27 February 2014. Web. 04 Apr. 2014
Flegal, K. M., Carroll, M. D., Ogden, C. L., & Curtin, L. R. (2010). Prevalence and trends in obesity among U.S. adults, 1999-2008. Journal of Medical Association. 303, 235-241.
Today SNAP is the new name of the federal Food Stamp Program. “SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The name was changed to SNAP to meet the needs of clients, which includes a focus on nutrition and an increase in the amount of benefit received” ("supplemental nutrition,"2011). Another detail about SNAP is its ability to respond to changing needs caused by economic cycles or natural emergencies on the local, state and national levels. It is second to unemployment insurance in its responsiveness to economic changes. SNAP is very helpful to low-income families’ monthly resources, increasing the chance families is able to meet basic needs.
The hunger problems in the United States are often exaggerated. We often see news stories of children going hungry or starving kids out on the street. I am not saying those problems do not exists, I am saying they are not as common as the media portrays them to be. There are 50 million Americans classified in poverty, yet only 4% percent of American parents say their children are ever hungry. I firmly believe that no child should go hungry, but 4% is a very small percentage, considering a record high 46 million Americans (1 in every 7 citizens) are receiving food stamps (Kozak). I am aware many families need the support of food stamps to help keep food on the table for their children. I am not convinced, however, that 1 in every 7 citizens need this help. I believe the government could do a much better job of investigating families or making requirements a little tighter to make sure only the people that need these benefits may receive
Metcalf, T., & Metcalf, G. (Eds.). (2008). Perspectives on Diseases and Disorders: Obesity. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Cengage Learning
It is regarded as temporary help and it is attached with stigma. Snap would be considered residual welfare. Institutional welfare is seen as normal way of fulfilling social needs. There tends to be no stigma attached and it is services that all categories of people. As recently announced lunch will be free for every child in NYC public schools regardless of income. Prior to this school year some families had to pay for lunch depending on income. Additionally for the children that did qualify for the free lunch sometimes skipped out of not eating for fear of bullying or the stigma that comes along with subsidized school meals. This universal lunch program will meet the universal needs of children. Universal welfare are services that do not require children or families to meet specific eligibility criteria. It is available for all and attracts all categories of people such as public education. On the other hand, selective programs are eligibility determined on a case-to-case basis. In order for one to qualify for SNAP they are screened
Household incomes are rising in Texas, leading to a decline in poverty, but the number of residents who require foods stamps has remained the same. There has been a slight decrease in the need for the program, but not one as significant as would be expected. Much of the blame shifts to illegal immigrants, those who critics of this program already view as an enemy. Some argue that the solution to the food stamps problem is increasing the income of those low socioeconomic families via the minimum wage. The goal of federal assistance should be to guide people to become able to support