The Biden administration on Tuesday proposed panoramic action to end hunger and reduce diet-related diseases by 2030, including a “pathway” to free school meals for all students, expansion of SNAP, development of front-of-package nutrition labels and a Medicare test of “food as medicine”. The 44-page strategy was released ahead of the first White House hunger conference in half a century and when one in 10 American households was food insecure and millions of people suffered obesity and other diet-related illnesses.
President Biden will call for the political willpower to enact the hunger strategy as keynote speaker at the conference on Wednesday, and “unify everyone around the goal,” said an administration official.
“The president’s No. 1 economic priority is tackling inflation and lowering prices for everyone,” said the official when asked about food affordability. Food prices rose by 11.4 percent in the 12 months ending in August, the highest food inflation rate since 1979.
Some of the administration proposals will require congressional action, such as expanding school nutrition programs, while others can be undertaken at the agency level, such as FDA development of front-of-package labels and guidelines to reduce sodium and, potentially, added sugars in foods. Administration officials linked anti-poverty tools, such as the child tax credit, earned income tax credit and minimum wages, to the campaign against hunger.
The 1969 hunger conference and its 1,800 recommendations influenced U.S. nutrition policy for the rest of the century. Key accomplishments were expansion of the food stamp and school lunch programs, authorization of WIC and creation of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
“The last conference was a critical moment in our history, and I have no doubt we’ll look back on this year’s conference with the same historic lens,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on social media.
Hunger in America was “a moral outrage,” said Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, a leading anti-hunger advocate in Congress. “It’s a political condition,” he said on MSNBC.
During a briefing, administration officials said the hunger strategy outlined ambitious but achievable goals to meet Biden’s goal of ending hunger and increasing healthy eating and physical exercise by 2030 so that fewer Americans experience chronic, diet-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease.
The dozens of recommendations include “a pathway to free healthy school meals for all” that would begin with expansion of the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools in poor neighborhoods to provide free meals to all pupils, to cover an additional 9 million children by 2032. The administration said “supports granting territories the option to transition from current block grants to SNAP” and it said SNAP should reach additional under-served populations such as formerly incarcerated people.
In a test of “food as medicine,” the administration said it supports a pilot program for medically tailored meals for Medicare recipients who have diet-related health conditions. The proposal would build on a demonstration project in Medicaid. The hunger strategy calls for Medicare and Medicaid to provide more access to nutrition and obesity counseling.
To help Americans choose healthy foods, the FDA would develop a front-of-package (FOP) label to quickly communicate nutrition information. “FOP labeling systems — such as star ratings or traffic light schemes — can promote equitable access to nutrition information and healthier choices, and could also prompt industry to reformulate foods to be healthier,” said the hunger plan. The FDA also would update nutrition standards for what can be labeled as “healthy” food, propose guidelines to further reduce sodium levels in foods, and consider steps, such as voluntary targets, to reduce the amount of added sugars in foods.
By one count, the hunger strategy listed 56 areas for action, organized around five “pillars,” such as improving food access, supporting physical activity and enhancing nutrition research.
“We really look forward to working with our congressional colleagues to move proposals forward,” said an administration official. “We know this strategy can’t be implemented overnight but we’re going to look for opportunities to get these proposals across the finish line going forward.”