After interviewing the experts, several key barriers to eating nutritiously with SNAP benefits emerged.  These included the high cost of nutrient-rich foods, inadequate SNAP benefit amounts, as well as environmental factors associated with poverty.  Unfortunately, foods with greater nutritional value tend to be more expensive. Combined with the fact that many experts agreed recipients are not receiving a sufficient amount of benefits, it’s easy to see why “SNAP participants might purchase nutrient-poor foods and beverages instead of purchasing fruits and vegetables to stretch their budget.”  Taking into consideration environmental factors associated with poverty like poor access to transportation, few local retailers that carry produce and healthy foods, and neighborhood violence that can make walking to retailers unsafe, it is evident that there are many barriers for SNAP recipients who want to eat nutritiously.

Those stakeholders who were interviewed had several solutions to overcoming these barriers, many of which are included in the recommendations made by the SNAP to Health Project Team in their 2012 report. For instance, interviewees suggested increasing both incentives and restrictions on the types of food purchased with benefits.  Because cost is often a barrier to purchasing healthy foods, SNAP policies should include incentives to help make these products more accessible to its recipients.  This is already being done at farmer’s markets where SNAP beneficiaries can get credits or bonus dollars for every dollar they spend. Many stakeholders believed these incentives should also be paired with restrictions on certain unhealthy foods that have been proven to contribute to weight gain such as sugar sweetened beverages. Another proposed strategy was modifying the SNAP benefit distribution to make it biweekly so that purchasing perishable fruits and vegetables would be more feasible.  Additionally, respondents in this study agreed enhancing nutrition education is an important part of overcoming some of these challenges.  Suggestions ranged from improving the existing SNAP-education program to incorporating social marketing approaches to reach SNAP participants in grocery stores. Recommendations were also made to improve the SNAP retailer environment; respondents proposed “stricter criteria to become an approved SNAP vendor” and “providing incentives for small SNAP vendors to sell healthy foods.”  Finally, many stakeholders interviewed called for more cooperation at the state and federal government levels, proposing “consistent nutrition messages that align with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and increased coordination among all federal nutrition assistance programs” as well as the USDA and the US Department of Health and Human Services.

This analysis of experts’ opinions emphasizes that SNAP is a critical safety net program providing nutrition to 1 out of 7 Americans, 50% of whom are children. The potential for SNAP is enormous, but to truly reach its goal of being a program that focuses on nutrition and healthy life styles, improvements need to be made.  The recommendations from this study included in the SNAP to Health report can help make SNAP an important antipoverty program as well as an innovative public health initiative.

SNAP is a 75 million dollar program that aims to address food insecurity and improve nutrition. With as many as 1 in 4 children enrolled in the program SNAP is a vital safety net for many families. However, recent data suggest that even among other low-income adults, SNAP beneficiaries have “lower dietary quality than non-participants.” Moreover, obesity is affecting poor youth disproportionally. How can this be? The authors discuss two potential problems: “cyclical variation in food availability” with SNAP benefits and consumption of high calorie, low-quality products. SNAP benefits are dispersed monthly which can lead to overconsumption at the beginning of the month when benefits are received and deprivation towards the end of the month when benefits are running low. Studies in animals show that this pattern of eating can lead to “increased body weight and fatness.” Additionally, SNAP currently does little to focus on food quality. Recent research suggests children eating nutrient dense, low-calorie snacks eat less and feel fuller longer than when snacking on high calorie foods of poor nutritional quality. The authors hypothesize that the lack of focus on food quality in SNAP may “simultaneously exacerbate hunger and promote obesity.”

The consequences of this perilous paradox of food insecurity and obesity in children are well documented including developmental delays, learning difficulties, impaired acquisition of social skills, behavioral and emotional problems, and obesity related diseases. So what can be done? The SNAP to Health Project Team has recommended aligning SNAP policies with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans in the same way other federal nutrition programs like WIC have been redesigned. SNAP should encourage the consumption of healthy and nutritious foods and discourage the consumption of high calorie foods with poor nutritional quality. As currently configured, SNAP only focuses on food quantity, which may be contributing to malnutrition and obesity despite its goal to help participants lead healthy lives. However, SNAP is in a position to help solve these problems. By making important improvements to the program that promote quality nutrition, SNAP can “provide a major opportunity to reduce the burden of diet-related disease among low-income children and families” by promoting a healthier future for them.

According to a 2009 study by the National Gardening Association, more than 43 million Americans grow fruit, herbs and vegetables in home gardens – and that number is increasing. These gardeners, given good soil, access to water, lots of sun, and a little bit of luck, typically wait for months for their crops to start bearing fruit.  Once they start the harvest, they use, preserve and share the bounty… but the squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. keep on coming and from personal experience, I can tell you that there are only so many cucumbers you can give to friends and still have them call you a friend.  While some gardeners compost the excess produce, many others simply let it rot in the garden or worse, throw it into the trash, adding to the waste stream and causing the release of methane gas as it decomposes – contributing to climate change.

According to 2009 statistics from the USDA, 49 million Americans are food insecure – this means that 1 out 6  people either do not have enough food or they are at real risk of not having enough food for their families.  After hearing numbers like billions and trillions thrown about by government officials, it is somewhat easy to start to think that 49 million as just another number.  To put it in perspective,  if you took the combined populations of Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia, 23 of our 50 states and added together, you’d have around 49 million hungry or nearly hungry people.   This includes one in four (or one in three if Hispanic) American children below the age of six.

Back in 1939, the “Food Stamps Plan”, an early precursor to SNAP, was rolled out under the Roosevelt Administration, both to meet the critical food needs of low income people as well as to help smooth out the market place for those commodities that were deemed a surplus.  The program was phased out four years later when these agricultural surpluses were no longer abundant.

Today, SNAP is the nation’s largest government food assistance program, enabling more than 47 million people to purchase food at a nearby store.  More than half of these people also turn to a food pantry to help sustain their family for at least part of the year. Like the rest of us who watch our pennies, SNAP beneficiaries are often confronted with the problem that the cost of fresh food is often higher than that of processed food.  To make matters worse, food stores in some communities have little or no fresh food whatsoever for sale, leaving millions of American families to rely exclusively on canned produce usually processed with salt or sugar – both of which have long term health consequences.
In May 2009, a nationwide program called the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign was created to enable gardeners who grow fruit, vegetables, herbs or nuts to share their excess harvest with a local food pantry – easily found at www.AmpleHarvest.org or with the free AmpleHarvest iPhone and Android apps.

Recognized by the White House, Google, Newman’s Own, the faith community and countless others along with extensive media coverage, nearly 6,000 food pantries across all 50 states are now receiving garden fresh produce from local backyard gardeners who use AmpleHarvest.org.

This one of a kind program has garnered an enthusiastic response nationwide.  For example, “Within one hour of registering Community Resource Center on the AmpleHarvest.org website I received a call from a local family of four with 10 orange trees. I spoke with the mother of the family and she said that until she heard of AmpleHarvest.org her family was spending time cleaning up rotten fruit off the ground. Now her family can spend time harvesting fruit to give to low income families in their community. Since speaking with her, she has dropped off 8 large bags full of locally grown oranges”

AmpleHarvest.org has quickly created a critical mass and accomplished resounding success because it does something the American food banks cannot do – enable America’s food pantries to receive freshly grown local produce.  The food bank network expertly moves an immense amount of food to the people that need it but the system was designed only for processed food.  It is neither fast nor diverse enough to handle locally sourced fresh food.
While tens of millions of growers across America do not know that they could or should donate excess food, nor where to donate it, tens of thousands of food pantries do not know they can accept fresh food or that it even exists in their own community. AmpleHarvest.org solves this problem and several others by moving information instead of food.

AmpleHarvest.org’s solution results in food pantry clients getting produce fresher than the food normally found in high end grocery stores.  This is accomplished by enabling the growers to harvest and donate the food within hours of when the food pantry clients will take it home – an innovative solution that works because AmpleHarvest.org is built around the idea of “just in time inventory”.  Furthermore, the model alleviates food pantries’ fears of needing more storage space or refrigeration were they to accept fresh food.  This all happens because AmpleHarvest.org connects the dots.

Providing fresh produce to local food pantries offers a number of benefits to both the recipient as well as the community.  Not only is fresh produce healthier than canned (no excess salt or sugar in the diet) goods, it tastes a lot better, has a much smaller carbon footprint and has eye appeal too!  Children, given the opportunity to enjoy fresh veggies are more likely to eat a healthier diet as they get older and quickly learn that apples do not normally come pre-sliced in cellophane.

Lastly, by helping to feed the neighbors in our community instead of throwing the excess away, America reduces its waste stream as well as the cost of keeping people from going hungry – all because an ample harvest was given to a pantry and not wasted. AmpleHarvest.org has been so exciting to people around the world that the model is now being replicated with our assistance by food bank networks in other countries.

Despite the innovation and impact of AmpleHarvest.org, the biggest challenge has been the support needed to sustain and grow the program not because it is too costly (quite the contrary) and not because it has not shown any impact (also quite the contrary – see our national map at www.AmpleHarvest.org/map) but because it is so innovative that it is outside the scope of what traditional food funding organizations support.  The other challenge AmpleHarvest.org has encountered is the perception that, because it is an Internet based solution to hunger, it costs nothing to operate.  Of course if you look at eBay, Google or iTunes, you quickly realize that behind every extraordinary Internet based solution are hardworking professionals that make things work.  And so it is with AmpleHarvest.org.   With a budget of pennies per year per hungry American annually, AmpleHarvest.org is by far the most cost efficient way of eliminating malnutrition and food waste in America.  And with an end goal of “no food left behind”, it is also eminently doable.

All it takes is an Ample Harvest – and a heart.

The AmpleHarvest.org Campaign, built to take advantage of excess food much as the “food stamps plan” did decades ago, complements SNAP by helping this fresh food get to the people with least access to it.  While AmpleHarvest.org relies on the Internet to make the connection, the success of the program is predicated on participation by people in communities across America.  As more food pantries register at AmpleHarvest.org, more gardeners across the country will be able to share their harvest, and garden by garden, hunger in America will be eliminated.
Here are some ways you can help AmpleHarvest.org help your community:

• If you know of a food pantry in your community, possibly in your house of worship, please visit www.AmpleHarvest.org/add for information on helping the pantry join the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign.
• If you belong to a community organization, please share with the other members, information about AmpleHarvest.org and urge them to share the information with their network of friends and family nationwide.
• Urge your local print and electronic news/media outlets to do a story about AmpleHarvest.org.  Press and media information is available at www.AmpleHarvest.org/press
• If you grow food in a home garden and harvest more than you can use, preserve or give away, please use AmpleHarvest.org to find a local pantry eager for your excess harvest
• If you belong to a community garden or CSA, please let the other members know that they can donate excess food.  Post the flier at www.AmpleHarvest.org/CSA
• Ask your business to sponsor an AmpleHarvest.org Virtual Food Drive wherein donations end hunger for good.  Learn  more at www.AmpleHarvest.org/VirtualFoodDrive
• Share the 2 sided/1 page flier at www.AmpleHarvest.org/gardenshop with a local garden shop or nursery
• Lastly, this Holiday Season, instead of putting flowers on the table, put out a basket of whole fruit.  After the dinner, donate the fruit to a local food pantry.  Visit www.AmpleHarvest.org/holiday to learn more.

There is a story about a man who falls into a deep hole and keeps calling out for help.  A number of people walk by, hear the man ask for help and, with some pity, they tell him that while they’d like to help, the hole is too deep – and they walk on.

Finally another person walks by and looks down.  The now exhausted and dispirited man again asks for help in getting out…. only to be told that the hole is too deep to help pull him out.  Instead of walking away however, this person jumps into the hole alongside the man.
“Are you a fool?  Now we’re both down here in the hole”.
“Yes we are” was the response, “and together, we’ll figure a way out”.
We live in a country where one in six people are in a hole and as long as any American is in a hole, we all are.

By empowering growers nationwide to reach into their backyards to help their food insecure neighbors, AmpleHarvest.org is helping America find its way out of the hole.

Learn more at: www.AmpleHarvest.org/FAQ

On September 9, 2011, the Obama Administration released its budget deficit reduction recommendations which included a decrease in agricultural spending by $33 billion over the next 10 years. On October 17, 2011, the House and Senate Agriculture Committee leadership sent a collective recommendation to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, proposing a cut of $23 billion on mandatory programs to the Farm Bill over the next decade. A deadline was set for November 1, 2011 to provide a complete legislative package of recommendations, but this timeline was not met. Without agreement from the Committee or a new bill that finalizes the budget, cuts for agricultural programs will automatically occur in January 2013 under the process of sequestration.

Estimates of budget cuts after sequestration were released last month with approximately an $8 billion reduction in funds for the Farm Bill, significantly less than the original estimate of $15-16 billion. The significant difference in these amounts is due to an exemption by the Office of Management and Budget from the 8.2% sequestration cut for nearly all crop insurance subsidies.

Two drafts of a new Farm Bill have been developed, one by the Democratic controlled Senate and the other by the Republican controlled House, continuing to reflect significant differences in the proposed extent of budget cuts, particularly in federal food assistance programs. The Senate passed a $969 billion replacement Farm Bill in June, 2012 (by a 64-35 vote). Both the House and the Senate will need to reconcile their differences in order to pass a new Farm Bill. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would need to put many services and programs on hold if no legislative action is taken to reauthorize the Farm Bill. If new legislation is not passed or the current bill is not extended, then the “permanent law”– outdated rules from the 1930s (when the Farm Bill was first passed) –would come into effect on January 1, 2013.

After its five week summer recess, and with less than a month before the election, Congress has been divided about the provisions and funding for this legislation. That is why constituents affected by the Farm Bill have become increasingly vocal about the need for its passage. This period of uncertainty has already taken a toll on farmers, especially with the extreme weather conditions plaguing rural America. The proposed budget cuts and the impasse also threatens the health and wellbeing of recipients of SNAP (Food Stamps). Speaker of the House, John Boehner, said on September 20 that the Congress will not be voting on the Farm Bill until after the elections.

As many Americans struggle with hunger and food insecurity during this time of economic hardship, SNAP is providing an important safety net for low-income families. 46.7 million people in the United States, 50% of whom are children, received food stamps in June 2012. The total budget for SNAP was $75.6 billion in FY2011. Future funding for SNAP will be an important component of Farm Bill discussions by the Congress after the elections in November.

Videos of presentations at the briefing are now available on the SNAP To Health website in the Media tab (under Capitol Hill Briefings). You can view the opening remarks and learn about the project’s ten key policy recommendations presented by Susan Blumenthal, M.D., the SNAP To Health Project Director and Former Assistant Surgeon General of the United States. Her remarks are followed by legislative perspectives from The Honorable Ron Wyden (Senate-Oregon), The Honorable Saxby Chambliss (Senate – Georgia) and The Honorable Rosa DeLauro (U.S. House of Representatives – Connecticut). Then Walter Willet, M.D., Chairman and Professor, Department of Nutrition, at the Harvard School of Public Health speaks on strategies to strengthen nutrition and prevent obesity in SNAP.

You can also check out the following videos on the “Capitol Hill Briefings” page or here: http://www.snaptohealth.org/media/capitol-hill-briefings/

• Opening remarks –Rear Admiral Susan J. Blumenthal, M.D.
• Ten Project Policy Recommendations–Rear Admiral Susan J. Blumenthal, M.D.
• Legislative perspectives–Senator Ron Wyden
• Legislative perspectives–Senator Saxby Chambliss
• Legislative perspectives–Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro
• Strengthening nutrition and preventing obesity in SNAP–Walter Willet, M.D., Chairman and Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health

Videos of other speakers’ remarks will be uploaded soon.

The Farm Bill, the legislation that funds federal food assistance programs including SNAP, expired on September 30th and its reauthorization will be addressed by the Congress when it reconvenes in November after the Presidential elections. Considering that 46.7 million people received SNAP benefits in June 2012, promoting healthy eating and preventing obesity among SNAP recipients is critical. SNAP provides a major opportunity to positively impact the health of 1 out of 7 Americans.

Join the discussion at http://www.snaptohealth.org to provide your perspectives on how to strengthen nutrition in SNAP.

Comprehensive Study Urges Public Health Approaches and Innovations That Make SNAP a 21st Century Program to Address Today’s Dual Crises

WASHINGTON, Jul 18, 2012 (GlobeNewswire) — Underscoring the need to protect and enhance the effectiveness of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — currently a target of budget cut debates on Capitol Hill — leading public health experts today called for a focused effort to strengthen the program to address the nation’s now dual crises of food insecurity and obesity. SNAP, a $76 billion dollar federal food assistance program, provides its 46.2 million participants with resources to purchase food (while excluding alcohol, tobacco, food eaten in the store, hot prepared foods, and dietary supplements). Citing the fact that 50 percent of SNAP participants are children — with 1 in 2 children participating in the program before the age of 19 — the report emphasizes the importance of updating SNAP so that it can fulfill the promise of its recent name change from the Food Stamp Program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“First and foremost, the current SNAP budget should be preserved — we cannot leave millions of Americans without this vital safety net,” said Susan Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.A., Former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General and Director of the Health and Medicine Program at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC), the organization that conducted the study with the Harvard School of Public Health and other partners. “But the absolute next priority is to strengthen nutrition in SNAP — the fact that 1 in 7 Americans are food insecure while two-thirds of adults and one-third of children are overweight or obese reveals a perilous American paradox that SNAP must address.”

The “SNAP to Health” report released today identifies seven areas for potential program improvements, ranging from lowering the cost of healthy foods for SNAP participants and discouraging the purchase of high-calorie/low-nutrient foods to increasing the distribution frequency of SNAP benefits. The report also identifies a 10-point menu of recommendations to refresh and update policy approaches, including: incentivizing the purchase of fruits and vegetables; strengthening stocking standards for SNAP retailer certification to include a greater variety of healthy foods; collecting data on foods purchased with SNAP benefits to increase the effectiveness and transparency of the program; providing states with greater

flexibility to test fresh approaches to promote public health in SNAP; and pilot-testing specific strategies to improve children’s nutrition in SNAP, given the high participation among children under the age of 19.

“The time has come for a strategic, coordinated, public health-driven strategy for SNAP — to not move in this direction is an enormous missed opportunity to meet two dire needs in this country in one significant fell swoop,” said Walter Willett, M.D., Dr. P.H., Chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Grounded in scientific evidence from the most comprehensive public health study of the program to date, the “SNAP to Health” report provides a roadmap for policymakers, public health professionals, educators, advocates, researchers and industry to work jointly to strengthen and update the program. The focus is on a range of innovations that build on the foundation that SNAP provides, all toward helping to reduce widespread diet-related health disparities affecting low-income Americans, including the working poor, children, and more than 1.5 million veteran households.

“When the Food Stamp Program was established in 1964, obesity affected only a small percentage of the U.S. population,” said Project Director Dr. Susan Blumenthal, going on to underscore, “Today, with 68 percent of Americans overweight, obesity is fueling a tsunami of chronic diseases that undermines our country’s health, economy and national security.”

Marion Nestle, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor and former chair of the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University noted, “The WIC (Women, Infants and Children) Program was updated in 2009 to align with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and improve its nutrition standards, making it easier for participants to purchase fruits and vegetables, for example — it’s time for SNAP to do the same and help address today’s needs.”

To study the feasibility of enhancing nutritional policies in SNAP and to develop innovative strategies to address the pressing 21st century public health challenges of food insecurity and obesity, CSPC convened an interdisciplinary team of experts who, together with the Center’s Health and Medicine Program staff, conducted an in-depth scientific literature review of SNAP, a survey of key stakeholders and a comprehensive statistical analysis of data specifically related to children from the 1999-2008 National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES).

The SNAP to Health initiative seeks to identify the barriers, best practices, and promising innovations for improving nutrition within the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in time for the program’s re-authorization in the 2012 Farm Bill. Its interactive website, http://www.snaptohealth.org , serves as a national forum for public discourse on improving nutrition in SNAP in advance of SNAP’s reauthorization in the upcoming Farm Bill and beyond.

The Center for the Study of the Presidency and the Congress is a non-profit, non-partisan policy and education institution dedicated to generating innovative solutions for the nation’s challenges.

CONTACT:

Berry Brady, 703.609.6643 berry@slfstrategies.com

Some nutrition assistance continues to be available to low-income children during school vacation through the NSLP and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). However, many children miss out on this valuable assistance. During the summer of 2011, only 1 in 7 of the children who rely on the NSLP for free or reduced-price lunches at school received summer meals.

For families relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, in areas where summer meals are hard to come by, school vacation can become a time of heightened food insecurity. SNAP dollars are stretched as meals that children typically receive at school must be provided at home. Given that nearly 50% of SNAP participants are children, this extra pressure on food budgets during summer months is pervasive among SNAP households.

The summer federal nutrition programs operate by reimbursing approved schools, youth programs, local governments, and nonprofit organizations for the meals they serve to children. “Open” sites can be approved to receive federal funds if located in an area where 50 percent or more of children are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals; any child that shows up can receive a meal. At “closed” sites, at least 50 percent of children receiving meals must be eligible for free or reduced-price school meals.

Under the current system of summer nutrition programs, many eligible children are unable to access sites serving food. Children in rural areas or with working parents often lack the transportation to reach sites that provide meals and snacks. Programs in rural areas may also have difficulty qualifying for funding, due to lower concentrations of poverty in some rural areas compared to urban ones. Additionally, in recent years state and local budget cuts have resulted in the closure of summer schools and youth programs. When programs like these are discontinued, children lose an essential source of food.

The closure of a summer lunch program in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, showcases some of the issues of summer food assistance delivery and hunger. Last summer, children at Harshbarger Mobile Home Park could walk down the road to receive lunch from a converted school bus operated by the South Side School District. The mobility of the program was essential to its success in reaching children, but the bus was costly, as federal funding did not cover the driver and gas. This year, the school district had to close down the Lunch Bus program, as none of its schools met the 50 percent eligibility requirement for open sites—areas of high poverty in the district are too thinly distributed. This year, parents will have to take their children on a 20-minute drive to another site to receive lunch. For working parents in the community, this is a major barrier to having their children obtain the free meals for which they qualify.

Seeking effective solutions to this summer hunger problem, USDA has funded a series of Summer Food for Children demonstrations since 2010. As a component of these demonstrations, USDA has awarded $5.5 million in grants to states and tribal entities with innovative proposals for how pre-existing electronic benefit infrastructure in SNAP and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) can be used to deliver summer food to children.  In demonstration areas, low-income families receive money for food comparable to the value of school meals via electronic benefit systems. By providing benefits directly to participating households, these demonstrations seek to address the barriers to accessibility that limit the success of existing summer nutrition programs.

Across the country, non-government initiatives both at the grassroots level and on a larger scale seek to fill the gap where federally-funded programs fail to reach children. In the Central Greene School District in Greene County, Pennsylvania, the support of volunteers, grants, and sponsors serves up meals for over 1,000 children. Chapters of the non-profit organization Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign have mapped out data about meal sites and poverty to identify target locations for meal programs and raise awareness among community leaders and local officials. In June, Wal-Mart announced a $20 million grant to support summer food programs.

Ensuring children receive adequate nutrition all year round is critical to their health, growth, and overall well-being. The best way to guarantee that American children will not go hungry in the summer is to marshal both new strategies and existing programs to provide children the meals that they need. Please use this website to share your ideas about how to sustain critical nutrition programs for school-aged children in the summer months.

SNAP to Health Save the Date July 18th

The researchers looked at 4,439 foods and estimated the cost by price per calorie, price per edible weight (ex. excluding inedible parts like chicken bones and watermelon rinds), and price per average portion size. They then used these metrics to compare costs for fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods compared to less healthy ‘moderation foods’ which are higher in sugar, fat and salt. When using the price per calorie metric the less healthy foods were cheaper. On the other hand, when using price per edible weight or average portion size, fruit and vegetables were cheaper than most dairy, protein and moderation foods. The photo above shows the different portion sizes for 100 calories of broccoli, strawberries, M&Ms, potato chips and bread.

One example is to compare a glazed doughnut, with about 240 calories, to a banana, with about 105 calories. If both foods cost the same amount, using the price per calorie metric, the doughnut would be cheaper. However, if you pick the banana you’ll probably only eat one and feel a lot fuller afterward, according to Andrea Carlson, lead author of the USDA study. One banana has three grams of fiber, as well as potassium, vitamin C, and B vitamins.

“Many have raised concerns that those of modest means… can’t afford a healthy diet,” said Kevin Concannon, USDA under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services. “The good news I take away from the study is that is not necessarily the case.”

Although this study found that healthy foods can be less expensive there are other barriers such as access to healthy foods which can be challenging in some areas that lack supermarkets. Access to affordable healthy food has also been part of the discussion surrounding the obesity epidemic with two-thirds of adults and one-third of children overweight or obese in the United States. The Weight of the Nation conference, report and HBO series have brought more attention to this issue recently.

For tips for eating healthy on a budget, visit: ChooseMyPlate.gov, and Shopping on a Budget at SNAPtoHealth.org.

However, there is an indication that childhood obesity rates are beginning to level off, or slightly decline based on data recently published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A new study found that overall rates in Massachusetts for children under age six substantially declined from 10.5 percent in 2004 to 8.9 percent in 2008 – a 14.7 percent drop over the four-year period! Researchers also found that this trend was greater (obesity rates fell 17 percent from 10.1 to 8.3 percent) among children insured by private health plans. The smaller decrease of 6.9 percent from 12.3 to 11.5 percent in obesity prevalence in Medicaid-insured children reveals the socioeconomic disparity in childhood obesity. While the majority of people who are obese are not minorities or poor, it is also worth noting that obesity rates within these groups are in fact relatively higher for one or both sexes when compared with the white or nonpoor population.

Children insured by Medicaid, the government-funded health plan provided for families with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level ($29,700 for a family of four in 2011), are exposed to more factors which increase their risk for obesity. While there is no definitive answer explaining the inverse relationship between income and obesity (as income decreases, obesity rates tend to increase), it has been speculated that low-income families most likely live in neighborhoods lacking safe outdoor areas for exercise and play, and have limited access to supermarkets selling fresh produce and healthy foods. Additionally, they are less aware of the harm that excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and calorically-dense foods pose on health.

The fact that childhood obesity prevention efforts are not having as much of an
impact on low-income groups is definitely a major concern. Adopting a “health
in all policies” approach, which involves a coordinated effort from over 40
federal agencies whose policies influence health, would help to address the various issues surrounding childhood obesity at multiple levels in society. Prevention efforts should begin targeting the needs of the low-income population with an understanding of the unique challenges and obstacles they face associated with poverty.