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Nutrition Assistance Programs: Cause or Solution to Obesity

  • Obesity Prevention (A Must, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Three nutrition assistance programs—Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and National School Lunch Program (NSLP)—serve as the backbone of the nutrition safety net in the USA. These programs have been successful in achieving many of their initial goals of improving food purchases, food intake, and/or nutritional status of low-income, vulnerable Americans. The emphasis in these programs has now broadened to also include an obesity prevention focus. Recent changes in program components demonstrate the revised objectives of the program. SNAP, WIC, and NSLP increase economic access to an adequate diet but access alone is unlikely to be the total solution to obesity prevention. An ecological approach, incorporating the nutrition programs, appears to be a more promising strategy to leverage the impact of SNAP, WIC, and NSLP.

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Acknowledgments

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Economic Research Service or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, 150 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA, 02201, USA

    Eileen Kennedy

  2. Economic Research Service, USDA, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Mailstop 1800, Washington, DC, 20520, USA

    Joanne F. Guthrie

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Correspondence to Eileen Kennedy.

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Eileen Kennedy and Joanne F. Guthrie declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Obesity Prevention

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Kennedy, E., Guthrie, J.F. Nutrition Assistance Programs: Cause or Solution to Obesity. Curr Obes Rep 5, 176–183 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-016-0207-x

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