Nutritional quality of retail food purchases is not associated with participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for nutrition-oriented households.

Yu Chen,Michele Ver Ploeg,Lisa Mancino,Biing‐Hwan Lin,Chen Zhen,Zhifeng Gao

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0240263

Abstract

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides millions of low-income Americans food benefits and other forms of nutrition assistance. Evidence indicates that SNAP reduces food insecurity. However, there is a concern that the food benefit may increase the demand for less healthy foods more than healthier foods, thereby reducing the overall nutritional quality of the participant's food basket. This paper aims to examine the association of SNAP participation with the nutritional quality of food-at-home purchases of low-income households and to investigate the potential heterogeneity among consumers with different levels of nutrition attitude. This analysis used food purchase data from the USDA National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS). Our study sample included 2,218 low-income households, of which 1,184 are SNAP participants, and 1,034 are income-eligible nonparticipants. Multivariate regressions were performed to explore the SNAP-nutritional quality association. A household's nutrition attitude was measured using its response to a question on whether the household searched for nutrition information online in the last 2 months. Households that affirmed they had an online nutrition search were treated as nutrition-oriented households (21.2% of the low-income sample), and households that did not were considered less nutrition-oriented households (78.8%). For robustness, we also created an alternative nutrition attitude measure based on reported use of the nutrition facts label. We found that among less nutrition-oriented households, SNAP participants had a statistically significant 0.097 points (p = 0.018) lower Guiding Stars rating than low-income nonparticipants. However, there was no significant SNAP-nutritional quality association among nutrition-oriented households. In conclusion, SNAP participation was associated with lower nutritional quality of food purchases among less nutrition-oriented households, but not among nutrition-oriented households. The results suggest that the intended nutritional benefits of restrictions on purchases of healthy foods may not reach the subgroup of nutrition-oriented SNAP participants.

Highlights

Suboptimal diet is related to increased risks of obesity and non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers [1]
The results suggest that the intended nutritional benefits of restrictions on purchases of healthy foods may not reach the subgroup of nutrition-oriented Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants
The Guiding Stars rating of SNAP participants was 0.558 points, 0.173 points (p

Summary

Introduction

Suboptimal diet is related to increased risks of obesity and non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers [1]. There is evidence that low-income populations purchase and consume foods of lower nutritional quality than their higher-income counterparts [3]. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest U.S domestic hunger safety net program, serving 35.7 million eligible low-income Americans in fiscal year 2019 with $55.6 billion in food benefits. Households must have net income at or below 100% of the Federal poverty thresholds (FPL), and households without an elderly or disabled member must have monthly gross income at or below 130% FPL. Previous studies suggested that eligible working-poor families and low-income elderly had low participation rates [4]; and eligible nonparticipants tend to have higher incomes and assets, have fewer children, and be less likely to have disabled members than SNAP participants [5]

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