{"id":15738,"date":"2025-03-13T15:45:51","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T16:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=15738"},"modified":"2025-03-13T16:57:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T16:57:24","slug":"wisconsin-should-prohibit-purchase-of-candy-and-soft-drinks-with-foodshare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=15738","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin should prohibit purchase of candy and soft drinks with FoodShare"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/wisconsin-should-prohibit-purchase-of-candy-and-soft-drinks-with-foodshare\/<\/a><\/p>\n

SNAP is a larded, sugary mess<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\"Imagine<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

State Sen. Chris Kapenga and Rep. Clint Moses are seeking support for legislation that would prohibit<\/a> Wisconsin\u2019s 700,000 FoodShare recipients from buying Snickers bars and Mountain Dew \u2014 an excellent idea that has long been opposed by big spenders and junk food lovers throwing their weight around.<\/p>\n

FoodShare is Wisconsin\u2019s name for a federally funded and state-administered program known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program \u2014 a misnomer if ever there was one.\u00a0 The number one so-called \u201cnutritional item\u201d purchased by recipients is soda, the Wisconsin legislators point out in a memo<\/a> seeking other sponsors.<\/p>\n

Nationally, they say, recipients spend more on the purchase of sweetened beverages, desserts and candy than on fruits and vegetables. More than one in three Wisconsinites struggle with obesity, in the meantime, and one in six has diabetes or pre-diabetes.<\/p>\n

It is true everyone should have a right to eat what they want \u2014 but only if they\u2019re paying for it with their own money. A disabled doctor using FoodShare pointed that out to me a couple years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur family recently started receiving SNAP benefits,\u201d wrote the doctor, whom I also talked to briefly on the phone. \u201cI had read the information prior to applying about how SNAP helped families to get \u2018healthy\u2019 foods.\u202f What a joke.\u202fI assumed that I would be able to get fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy \u2014 actually healthy foods \u2014 similar to what is allowed on WIC,\u201d the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, I can get those, but I can also get Monster, Diet Pepsi, Hershey\u2019s Miniatures, Doritos and Oreos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government is going to forcefully take money from my friends and neighbors in taxes, I shouldn\u2019t be able to turn around and spend that money on Mountain Dew and Ben and Jerry\u2019s,\u201d wrote the doctor, who later reiterated on the phone that she just doesn\u2019t see the SNAP benefit as her own money.<\/p>\n

As I wrote at the time, I wish there were more North Woods doctors around.\u00a0When you take government money, no matter how much you need it, you should expect to lose freedom \u2014 and, if you\u2019re not careful, maybe your health as well.<\/p>\n

Sixty to 70 percent of SNAP recipients between the ages of 50 and 64 have had a diet-related disease such as diabetes or heart disease or hypertension \u2014 higher numbers than are found among similarly aged non-recipients,\u00a0according to research<\/a>\u00a0Dr. Angela Rachidi conducted along with Thomas O\u2019Rourke, her colleague at the American Enterprise Institute.<\/p>\n

Rachidi is both a senior fellow at AEI and a visiting fellow here at the Badger Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough obesity plagues U.S. adults of all socioeconomic statuses, SNAP adults were (also) much more likely to be obese than were low-income non-recipients and high-income non-recipients, suggesting again there is something uniquely substandard about the health status of adults receiving SNAP,\u201d the AEI paper concluded.<\/p>\n

Kapenga and Moses\u2019 legislation would require the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to request a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to prohibit purchases of candy and soft drinks here in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Oklahoma) have introduced legislation at the federal level, the Healthy SNAP Act, to exclude soft drinks, candy, ice cream, and prepared desserts from SNAP. But opponents have stifled such moves in the past.<\/p>\n

Requesting a waiver here in Wisconsin is likely the quicker path.<\/p>\n

Mike Nichols is the President of the Badger Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n

Any\u202fuse or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written\u202fpermission.\u202fTo request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute President Mike Nichols at\u202f<\/em>mike@badgerinstitute.org<\/em><\/a>\u202for 262-389-8239.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Wisconsin should prohibit purchase of candy and soft drinks with FoodShare<\/a> appeared first on Badger Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/wisconsin-should-prohibit-purchase-of-candy-and-soft-drinks-with-foodshare\/ SNAP is a larded, sugary mess State Sen. Chris…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-badger-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15739,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15738\/revisions\/15739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}