The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is the federal government’s gargantuan food stamp program. While the program is touted as “America’s first line of defense against hunger” and is supposedly geared toward “improving the nutrition and health” of low-income households, it paradoxically serves as a colossal subsidy for the insatiable soda industry. Of the nearly $80 billion that taxpayers spend each year on SNAP, approximately $4 billion is siphoned off by soda companies. While SNAP recipients aren’t necessarily at fault for spending their food stamps on sugary sodas, they should be prohibited from doing so.
A recent study conducted by the Stanford Prevention Research Center found that placing a ban on the use of food stamps for sugary beverages would result in a significant reduction in obesity and type-2 diabetes among low-income households. The researchers concluded that, over a 10-year period, about 281,000 adults and 141,000 children in low-income households across the country would dodge the obesity and diabetes bullet if this ban were implemented. In addition to the obvious health benefits for SNAP recipients, this regulation would save taxpayers a tremendous amount of money in medical expenses.
Of course, this measure would be an undeniably paternalistic one. It would arguably encroach upon the individual liberty of low-income citizens, and as such, it should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Yet to write off this proposed regulation on the basis of the rights of SNAP recipients would be comically hypocritical. The program is not designed to enable low-income people to indulge their sweet tooth — it is aimed at allowing them to meet their basic nutritional needs during difficult times. Sugary, carbonated beverages have absolutely zero nutritional value, and studies indicate that soda is physiologically addictive. Hence, soda does not align with the stated goals of SNAP, and in fact, it would seem to directly undermine those goals. As a taxpaying citizen, I vehemently object to the use of my hard-earned dollars in such a way that is detrimental to the programs that we, as a nation, have agreed to support.
This proposed regulation is not an attack on the poor but rather a remedy for the undemocratic influence of the rapacious soda industry. The American public, including those who pay for and those who benefit from the expensive, but necessary food stamp safety net, does not benefit from the funneling of SNAP dollars into the already deep pockets of Big Cola. SNAP recipients are taken advantage of by deviant, strategically targeted marketing schemes and are coerced into adopting addictions to unhealthy, sugary and caffeinated soft drinks. While it is each individual’s choice as to what to drink, regardless of the social consequences, it is not the responsibility of the American public to subsidize addiction or pad the pockets of this industry. Tobacco and alcohol cannot be purchased with SNAP dollars, and neither should sodas, as all three are incontestably counterproductive to the aim of the program and the well-being of our society.