2 days ago
Nutrition Program for Americans on Food Stamps at Risk in GOP Bill
Wesley Lapointe/For The Washington Post
Aretha Richardson waters seedlings planted during an adult SNAP-Ed class in the community garden at Moravia Park Elementary School in Baltimore on June 4.
BALTIMORE – A group of kindergartners sat attentively in a bright elementary school, ready to learn the keys to living a healthy life. One of the four main pillars, nutrition educator Karen Turner told them, was to drink lots of water.
'What about Pepsi?' Turner asked.
'No!' the kids screamed.
'What about Capri Sun?'
'No!'
For more than 15 years, Turner has been teaching healthy habits to students at schools like Moravia Park Elementary, where 100 percent of the children are eligible for free and reduced meals. The effort is part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education, or SNAP-Ed, a federally funded initiative that aims to help low-income Americans make healthier, cost-effective food choices.
But Turner's classes – and other activities to increase nutrition and prevent obesity across the country – could soon end. House Republicans have proposed eliminating SNAP-Ed.
The potential cut alarms program leaders who say states would be forced to pare back efforts to improve Americans' health at a moment when addressing childhood illness and chronic disease has rapidly become a major theme of President Donald Trump's domestic agenda. Supporters of the program wonder why Congress would defund efforts to teach food stamp recipients how to eat healthy at the same time Trump administration officials are, for the first time, approving state efforts to crack down on using benefits to pay for soda and candy.
Nearly 20 percent of U.S. children are obese, almost four times the rate in the 1970s before the proliferation of ultra-processed food, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation's top health official, has called for sweeping change to the nation's food supply.
'If you want America to be healthier and you're cutting SNAP-Ed, I don't see how that can be done,' said Turner, who is with Maryland's SNAP-Ed program run by the University of Maryland Extension.
The cut was just one line item in the House version of Trump's massive tax and immigration bill, which passed the chamber last month. It's not yet clear what Senate Republicans will do. A spokeswoman for the Senate agriculture panel, which oversees SNAP, said the committee is 'working through the process' of crafting its portion of the bill with the aim to release it in the 'coming days.' She did not say whether the chamber will also seek to eliminate dollars to SNAP-Ed.
On Monday evening, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), a member of the Agriculture Committee, said the Senate has not yet decided. Another member, Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia), said he did not believe the program would be fully eliminated, but funding could be reduced.
Republicans cast SNAP-Ed as duplicative and ineffective, saying they don't believe it has delivered meaningful change in the nutrition or obesity of Americans who receive benefits formerly known as food stamps – an assertion those who have evaluated the program contest.
'The data shows it hasn't moved the dial in making America healthy again,' Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania), the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a brief interview.
A 2019 Government Accountability Office report stated that the U.S. Department of Agriculture needed to improve how it gathers information on the effectiveness of SNAP-Ed programs to determine if the program is meeting its goals. Since then, the program has bolstered its reporting mechanisms.
The sweeping legislation – which the Senate is currently reworking in an effort to pass it by July 4 – includes other major changes to SNAP, which provides food assistance to needy families. The House bill expanded work requirements to receive benefits. It also required states to pay between 5 to 25 percent of SNAP benefits in moves that could lead millions of low-income Americans to lose access to food stamps or see decreases in their monthly benefits.
Yet, many SNAP-Ed leaders were caught off guard by the complete elimination of the $536 million annual program, one of the USDA's largest nutrition education initiatives. Congressional scorekeepers estimate repealing the program would save the government nearly $5.5 billion over the next decade.
'Each day, the Department of Agriculture spends roughly $400 million across its 16 nutrition programs. Yet diet-related, chronic disease is skyrocketing, particularly in children,' a USDA spokesperson said in a statement, adding that 'Secretary [Brooke] Rollins will continue to support President Trump's agenda while making certain we respect the generosity of the American taxpayer to Make America Healthy Again.'
Fed and watered
In Baltimore in early June – less than two weeks after the House passed legislation to eliminate SNAP-Ed – a two-hour nutrition class for adults was wrapping up. The smell of Cajun-style catfish overwhelmed the hallways of the elementary school as participants enjoyed the food they made based on ingredients they had received earlier from a food bank.
Cheryl Colvin poured some salt into her hand and sprinkled it on her fish.
Then, the self-professed 'salt-a-holic' took a bite.
'I just added that little pinch of salt,' she said, 'and I shouldn't have.'
Colvin – who receives roughly $300 in food stamps each month – said she grew up cooking with a lot of grease. Through Turner's classes, the two-time cancer survivor is learning to prepare foods in a healthier way, she said, such as by roasting chicken rather than frying it (and using less salt).
She, along with the other participants, also made 'container gardens' out of empty strawberry containers. They planted a lettuce mix as Turner told the class they could use their food stamp benefits to buy seeds. 'Can you see how that can actually help you save money?' Turner asked the class.
For roughly 25 years, Maryland has operated a SNAP-Ed program through the University of Maryland Extension. But the groundwork for the nationwide initiative was laid decades ago, and starting in 1992, the federal government began partially funding nutrition education plans from states that chose to participate.
Nearly two decades later, SNAP-Ed became a nationwide grant program with the passage of the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. States get federal grants to fund an array of educational activities, such as marketing campaigns, farm-to-school programs and community gardens. The focus is also on creating new policies aimed at improving the overall health in a community, like an effort in Maryland to work with school districts to strengthen wellness policies. The program is targeted to those who are eligible for SNAP, as well as those who qualify for other federal food assistance.
In a markup of the House bill last month, several Democrats criticized the move to eliminate dollars to SNAP-Ed.
'SNAP benefits are being cut in this hearing – right now through this bill,' said Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii). 'Now we're also talking about taking away the education that helps families stretch them further.'
Thompson, the Republican committee chair, said that he'd always believed the concept of SNAP education was a 'really good thing.'
He argued that 'numerous studies' had not shown evidence that SNAP-Ed has influenced long-term behaviors, adding that the federal government has other nutrition programs. A spokesman pointed to the GAO report as well as two studies from 2012 and 2013, which had varied results.
Those who have evaluated the program contend they believe it is effective. They point to data they say show there is evidence the program is accomplishing its goals and contend it fills gaps that other federal programs can't fill.
'Republicans didn't talk with us about bipartisan solutions for how we might improve the program,' Rep. Angie Craig (Minnesota), the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said in a statement to The Washington Post. 'They took a page out of Elon Musk's DOGE playbook and deleted SNAP-Ed entirely.'
In recent years, SNAP-Ed launched a new electronic national reporting system to better compare data across states, according to the Association of SNAP Nutrition Education Administrators. Pamela Bruno, the lead evaluator of Maine's SNAP-Ed program, said the association recently analyzed data from the new reporting system that showed improvement in fruit and vegetable intake, as well as shopping behaviors and physical activity.
'As someone who's evaluated it for over a decade, I see the impacts,' Bruno said, 'and I believe there is a rigorous and really effective process for both planning and evaluating this program nationally.'
Jerry Mande, who oversaw SNAP-Ed at the Agriculture Department for six years under the Obama administration, says he wants the initiative to have a greater focus on developing pilot programs to test out new policies in SNAP and mass-media campaigns – efforts he believes could have the broadest reach.
But, Mande said, he opposes the effort to defund the program. He noted the Trump administration's recently released budget dealing with discretionary spending mentions funding for SNAP-Ed. The White House has not detailed how it will handle funding levels for programs, like SNAP-ED, set outside the annual appropriations cycle. Some prior Trump budgets had proposed terminating funding.
After the nutrition lesson with Turner at the Baltimore elementary school, Tina Smith walked her kindergartners back to the classroom. They had just learned about four ways to be happy and healthy. Enjoy healthy snacks. Eat healthy meals. Use playtime as exercise. Drink lots of water.
For 14 years, Smith has worked at Moravia Park Elementary School.
The classes, she said, were an 'eye-opener.'
