Why a Soft Drink Ban for Food Stamp Recipients Is Bad Policy

Fellow PiA blogger Greg Plotkin has voiced his support for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to prohibit food stamp recipients from using any part of their benefits to purchase soft drinks and other sugary beverages.

He expects, however, that "advocates for the poor" will criticize the ban for unfairly stigmatizing people who receive federal nutrition assistance. In fact, the proposed ban had barely hit the newswires when advocates — not only for poor people, but for hunger prevention and healthy diet policies — began raising objections.

Ellen Vollinger, the legal director at the Food Research and Action Center, the leading anti-hunger advocacy organization in the country, points out that the ban runs counter to the basic principles of dietary guidelines because it sets up good food-bad food categories. It can also make people "less likely to want to participate in the program," she says. Hardly good policy when a third of eligible people don't participate now.

Marion Nestle, a professor in New York University's Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health and a well-known author of books on food politics and policies is, as she says, "no fan of sodas." She notes, however, that the ban is based on the never-proved notion that food stamp recipients make worse food choices than everyone else.

While she favors New York's proposed tax on sugary drinks, she's not endorsing the soft drink ban. She says she'd "much prefer incentives," e.g., doubling the value of food stamp benefits when spent on fresh or single-ingredient frozen fruits and vegetables.

Joel Berg, who can hardly be characterized as just one of those "advocates for the poor," strikes a similar note. "There's not an iota of evidence that poor people in the food stamp program shop any less nutritiously than anyone else," he says. "We have no problem giving subsidies to Goldman Sachs, but when it comes to poor people, we want to say, 'I want to make damn well sure that every penny goes where I think it's supposed to go."

Berg is a former U.S. Department of Agriculture official, Executive Director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and a nationally-recognized authority on federal food policies.

The USDA itself has taken a parallel position. In 2004, it denied a somewhat similar request by Minnesota because the proposed ban would "perpetuate the myth that participants [in the food stamp program] do not make wise purchasing decisions," whereas research shows they tend to buy much the same foods as higher-income shoppers.

Americans consume an astonishing volume of soft drinks. The Center for Science in the Public Interest reports (pdf) that companies produce enough to provide 52.4 gallons a year for every man, woman and child. There's no way that food stamp recipients can be held accountable for this per capita average.

Clearly, a broad sector of men, women and children are drinking a great deal of "liquid candy" that's associated with a variety of health risks. The most important, of course, are becoming overweight and obese and the health problems linked to those conditions. These, I take it, are the basis for Greg's position. And they're surely legitimate concerns.

As everyone knows, overweight and obesity rates have increased dramatically. According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than two-thirds of adults and nearly one-third of children are overweight. Nearly 34 percent of adults and 17 percent of children are obese — both rates significantly greater than 30 years ago.

These overweight and obese people aren't all food stamp recipients. While some research shows that overweight and obesity rates are higher among the lowest income group overall, there are still plenty of overweight and obese people in higher income brackets. In fact, as the Food Research and Action Center recently reported, higher income groups seem to be catching up with the lowest.

So why not ban soft drinks for everyone? You know the answer. Consumers would never stand for it. Indeed, we've got evidence they won't even accept a high surtax aimed at deterring consumption. Last year, New York Governor David Paterson proposed an 18 percent tax on non-diet soft drinks and sweetened fruit drinks. He got so much flak he had to withdraw it.

Some say that the proposed soft drink ban is justified because the food stamp program should encourage the purchase of healthy food.

We can do that without subjecting low-income people to rules we would never accept for ourselves. Consider, for example, Nestle's proposal that we stretch the value of food stamp benefits spent on fresh or minimally-processed fruits and vegetables.

New York City already gives food stamp recipients a $2.00 health bucks coupon for every $5.00 they spend at certain local farmers' markets. Why not expand this program beyond the targeted neighborhoods and maybe beyond farmers' markets too?

Even better, just increase the base value of food stamp benefits so that recipients can afford to buy an appropriate variety of nutritious foods that don't have to be cooked from scratch (pdf), as those in the market basket for the Thrifty Food Plan (pdf) used to calculate the benefits do.

Even setting aside the unrealistic time demands in the Thrifty Food Plan, Berg is surely right in saying that the real problem is that "low-income people don't have enough money to buy healthy foods," not that they "don't know how to shop any better."

FRAC has argued (pdf) that the USDA should instead use the lowest-cost food budget that's intended for normal use — approximately 25 percent higher than the TFP. Congress has instead put a food stamp cut in place — and will make it happen sooner if we don't tell our members to find more sensible funding for child nutrition.

Seems to me that the experiments needed now aren't soft drink bans and the like, but initiatives that would make healthful eating as possible for food stamp recipients as for those of us with more expendable income, ready access to full-service grocery stores and time to visit those charming farmers' markets.

Photo credit: Special KRB