A bill in Florida has sough to restrict the type of groceries food stamp recipients can buy. The bill, which was passed last week, bans people from buying “nonstaple, unhealthy food.”
It’s understandable that in America, where obesity rates run high, people would want to ensure that only the best, most healthy foods are being consumed, especially when it’s on the public’s dollar.
We’ve been on a national health kick for years. But bills like this, that tell people they can’t buy the kind of food they want, go a little too far and are pretty unnecessary and weird.
The bill was sponsored by Rhonda Storms, a Republican senator who said she was alarmed when she saw someone buying junk food with food-stamps at the grocery store. With the struggling economy, Storms said that people need to learn to live without junk food.
“If we’re going to be cutting services across the board,” she said, “then people can live without potato chips, without store-bought cookies, without their sodas.”
What she really means is poor people can live without potato chips, store-bought cookies and soda. It’s a weird stance to take. Does that mean people who aren’t using food stamps are allowed to eat whatever they want?
I can understand if she’s advocating for people to make healthier choices. An article by the L.A. Times did mention that Storms was also concerned about the health needs of underprivileged children, but why not make that your platform? It seems strange and I don’t know why we need to be so concerned with other people’s eating habits.
Obesity is a huge problem in America. It would be pretty stupid for me to try to deny that. But, at the end of the day, everyone is responsible for making their own choices regarding what they consume and whether or not they exercise to work off all the crap they eat. No bill is going to change that.
There is also the matter of what constitutes unhealthful food and what doesn’t. Most fruit juices are highly concentrated and full of sugar. Do they get a free pass? Or are we banning them alongside potato chips and soda.
What about baked chips and diet soda, though? How do we categorize those types of food. It’s not as black and white as it may seem, and really, it’s just too much effort to try to police what everyone’s eating.
Legislation with similar restrictions have been presented to other states, including California, but without success. If we’re trying to help lower-income individuals eat healthier there are better ways to go about it.
In Massachussetts there’s a program that gives 30 cents back to people who use their food stamps to buy fruits and vegetables. Sure, 30 cents doesn’t seem like a lot, but if we focused on programs like this, that reward people for choosing healthy options instead of berating them when they don’t, people would probably be more likely to eat healthy.
Further, there are no studies that link food stamp usage and obesity, so why is this a big deal in the first place? The United States is obsessed with being healthy, and with such massive amounts of obesity, it’s understandable.
But, that doesn’t mean we have to resort to questionable methods in order to get people to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
It’s just common sense. You don’t make progress by straight up banning things. In this case, it would probably be much more effective if we just encouraged healthier choices.
Adopting programs like the 30-cent kick-back wouldn’t hurt either. Bills like the one passed in Florida are too problematic. If we spent more time working with people to improve their health instead of just policing their grocery list, we’d probably be a lot better off.
Alexis Reza is a senior journalism major and opinions editor for the Daily 49er.
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