Oklahoma Applies for SNAP Waiver to Bar Payment for Sodas, Candy, Baked Goods

 Although people should have the right to eat soda, candy, and other less nutritious foods, the federal government shouldn't be subsidizing it, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday at an event in Oklahoma.

"We are poisoning the American people," Kennedy said at the event at the Oklahoma State Capitol Building in Oklahoma City. "It's time now for us to take personal responsibility for our own health and [elect] leaders like [Oklahoma Governor Kevin] Stitt [R], who will change the way that we do things in this country to give American kids a better chance of growing up healthy."

Kennedy said that when he was a child, "we had the healthiest children in the world, and today we have the sickest children. When I was a boy, when my uncle was president, I was a 10-year-old boy, and we had 3% of Americans with chronic disease at that point. Today, 60% have chronic disease. The obesity rate was 3% in the United States, and today it's about 50%."

In 1960, when Kennedy was a 6-year-old child, the life expectancy for Americans was nearly 10 years lessopens in a new tab or window than it is today, and the infant mortality rate was approximately five times higheropens in a new tab or window.

"Oklahoma is 47th in health in the United States and that's not a good thing," Kennedy added. "I'm hoping that when Gov. Stitt leaves office, Oklahoma will be doing much better."

Stitt announced that Oklahoma is applying to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for a waiver to allow the state not to pay for sodas, candy, or confectionery items for Oklahomans enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), "so our tax dollars are not going to continue to fund foods that are making people sick."

"This waiver [application] is on [Agriculture Secretary Brooke] Rollins' desk right now," he said. "We're also going to work with USDA to find ways to promote healthy eating on SNAP benefits and cause those dollars to go further ... Eating healthy foods today is going to reduce healthcare spending and dietary-related illnesses later on in life."

Kennedy expressed similar sentiments. "With the SNAP waivers, people say, 'Aren't you being a nanny state? Aren't you taking soda drinks, sugary drinks, and candy and confectionery products away from the American people?'" he said. "And my answer to that is, if you want to drink a bottle of soda, you should be able to have that right. We live in a country where we have individual freedom. But the federal government should not be paying for it with taxpayer money."

Kennedy said that the federal government is paying for the chronic disease epidemic in two ways -- "We're paying for [it] at the front end by buying soda for the poorest Americans, and then we're paying for [it] in the back end with this diabetes epidemic, through Medicaid and Medicare. And it doesn't make any sense."

In addition to making the SNAP waiver announcement, Stitt also signed an executive order instructing the Oklahoma Department of Health to stop recommending water fluoridation. "Cities and water districts, they can still choose to do what they want based on their constituents and the science, but it's no longer going to be a recommendation from the state health department," he said. Floridaopens in a new tab or window and Utahopens in a new tab or window recently banned fluoridation of water in their states, and other states are considering similar measures.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. looks on as Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt (R) signs an executive order removing artificial food dyes from state-supplied meals and stopping the state health department from recommending water fluoridation.

Stitt said he was also instructing all state agencies that provide meals to Oklahomans -- including in public schools and in prisons -- to discontinue using foods containing artificial dyes. Oklahoma joins West Virginia, whose legislature passed a similar banopens in a new tab or window in March; the FDA also announced in Aprilopens in a new tab or window that it would work with food manufacturers to get petroleum-based dyes removed from foods distributed throughout the U.S.

Kennedy applauded the move. "I talked yesterday in Washington, D.C. to corrections officials from all over the country," he said. "And before I went in there to give that talk, I looked at some of the data." Kennedy said that from a Google search he found over a dozen studies showing that when prison food was improved, "violence goes down by 38%, assaults go down by 85%, and suicides in one juvenile facility went down 100% ... This food is poisoning not only our [physical] health, but our mental health as well. We need to start giving better food to our children in our schools and give them a chance."

Stitt also announced that the state would convene an advisory council "to study and recommend other changes to improve health outcomes across the state of Oklahoma. "We have the opportunity now to encourage Oklahomans to make more healthy choices and we're going to be doing other things this summer to promote fitness and wellness," he said. "You know how much I love gardening, so we may do a little gardening contest as well ... We just want to continue to promote health and wellness in the state of Oklahoma."

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/healthpolicy/116273