Governors in several states have recently announced plans to remove some unhealthy foods from food stamp programs, gaining traction for a key component of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative.
On Tuesday, the governors of Arkansas, Idaho, and Indiana all announced that they would request a waiver from the United States Department of Agriculture to prevent Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients from spending their money on candy and soft drinks.
The move follows a similar announcement by West Virginia’s governor last month.
SNAP is overseen by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who has stated that such waivers will be approved. She appeared at a press conference on Tuesday alongside Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who announced her waiver submission.
The same morning, Kennedy appeared alongside Indiana Governor Mike Braun for a similar announcement.
“You are setting the stage at the federal level,” Braun told Kennedy.
“This is not a usual top-down one-size-fits-all public health agenda,” he told me. “Our focus is on root causes, open information, and tangible results. We are tackling big issues like diet-related chronic illness.
Consuming excessive amounts of added sugar can lead to health issues such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. According to USDA guidelines, added sugar should account for no more than 10% of a child’s or adult’s daily calorie intake.
Based on a 2,000-calorie diet, that would be 200 calories, or about 12 teaspoons. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children consumed an average of 17 teaspoons of added sugar per day in 2017-2018.
Kennedy and Rollins have advocated for changes to SNAP and publicly encouraged governors to submit waivers.
Last month, Kennedy appeared alongside West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey to announce that he would seek a waiver to remove soda from SNAP.
“The message I want to send to the country today, and to all of the other governors, is to get in line behind Governor Morrisey and apply for a waiver from my agency, and we will give it to you. That is how we are going to win this,” Kennedy declared that day.
According to the USDA website, SNAP recipients can currently use their benefits to purchase fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry, and fish; dairy products; breads and cereals; “other foods such as snack foods and non-alcoholic beverages”; and seeds and plants.
SNAP benefits may not be used to buy alcohol or tobacco, among other things.
Experts believe the state’s efforts to add soda and candy to the prohibited list will be effective in shifting SNAP recipients away from junk food.
“If they have to spend their own money on junk food, they are not going to buy as much junk food,” Marion Nestle, an emeritus professor of public health at New York University, told ABC News.
However, Nestle indicated that states may find it difficult to define what should be excluded from SNAP benefits.
“Candy can have nuts, it can have raisins, it can have other kinds of things in it that are real foods and are healthier,” she went on.
Gov. Brad Little signed an Idaho bill on Tuesday that defines candy as “a preparation of sugar, honey, or other natural or artificial sweeteners combined with chocolate, fruits, nuts, or other ingredients or flavorings in the form of confections, bars, drops, or pieces.”
The bill’s definition of candy excludes “any item that contains more than ten percent flour by weight or requires refrigeration.”
Dariush Mozaffarian, director of Tufts University’s Food Is Medicine Institute, told ABC News that “we need to try a lot of different things” to make Americans healthier, and he was optimistic about state-level efforts to overhaul SNAP.
“If we make the program meet all its goals, including nutrition, which is in its name, then that strengthens the program,” he told me.
Vani Hari, a healthy food activist known as the Food Babe, the founder of Truvani, and a front-line leader of the MAHA movement, dubbed this “a do-or-die moment” for American health.
“We should question any legislator who does not sign these bills; there is no legitimate reason to include high fructose corn syrup water in government-funded nutritional programs. “Governors who support Secretary Kennedy’s vision for MAHA will change the course of American health history – it is a do or die moment, and we have never had momentum like this before,” Hari told ABC News in a statement.