Food insecurity in the United States remains at record high levels

USDA reported today that about 17 million households (or 14.7% of all U.S. households) were food insecure in 2009.  This level equals the record high level set the previous year, in the midst of recession.

Washington Post coverage today discussed the role of the economy and federal food assistance programs in influencing food insecurity:

"It's a considerable reflection of what is going on in the economy," said Kevin Concannon, USDA under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services....  Concannon said he was somewhat hopeful since the number of families suffering from hunger and nutrition problems stabilized last year even though the population of unemployed Americans rose from 9 million in 2008 to 14 million in 2009.

He attributed the stabilization to successful outreach and enrollment of many of these families into USDA-funded food programs. Fifty-seven percent of the families in the survey are enrolled in one or more of these programs. And one in four households have at least one family member participating in an USDA feeding program, up from one in five just two years ago.

Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been increasing rapidly in the past two years.  Average monthly participation in this leading anti-hunger program, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, was 33 million people in 2009, up more than 5 million from the preceding year.  However, increased SNAP participation itself reflects increased economic hardship and does not necessarily mean reduced food insecurity and hunger.  In the most recent USDA food insecurity report, the rate of household food insecurity was 55% among SNAP participants, but only 31% of low-income non-participants.

Because the annual USDA report no longer describes severe food insecurity as "food insecurity with hunger," the clearest national survey-based measure of hunger in the United States is the simple question about whether any adults in the household went hungry.  The estimates reported in appendix A of the new report indicate that 4.6% of U.S. households in 2009 experienced hunger in this sense, unchanged from the preceding year.

SNAP (food stamp) purchase amounts at individual Massachusetts retailers

The website MuckRock has posted a remarkable data set showing SNAP (food stamp) purchase amounts at individual Massachusetts retailers.  A clever Google Maps application makes the data easy to access.  By clicking on each red dot, one can see the redemptions data for fiscal years 2006 through 2009.

In general, the federal government shares information about the location of SNAP retailers but not the amount of redemptions at each retailer.  According to the Boston Globe today, it is possible that the data were released in error, and MuckRock may have to take down the data.  This would be too bad.  Just as the farm subsidies received by individual farmers are subject to freedom-of-information rules, and can be shared with the public, it seems reasonable to think of SNAP benefit payments to retailers as public information rather than fully private business information.  Perhaps a reasonable compromise would be to stipulate a threshold for small retailers below which the exact dollar amount need not be made public.

Generic advertising for fruits and vegetables

In light of the recent controversy over commodity checkoff advertising for cheese, some may wonder why there is no similar advertising for fruits and vegetables.

A recent working paper (.pdf) by a team of economists from Cornell and Arizona State uses a laboratory experiment to estimate the potential consumer response to several different fruits and vegetable advertising strategies.  The paper by Jura Liaukonyte, Bradley Rickard, Harry Kaiser, and Timothy Richards found, in this consumer laboratory setting, that broad-based advertising for the entire category of fruits and vegetables seemed more promising than separate advertisements for particular products.  Separate advertisements for each product could cannibalize each other.

An earlier study in Australia estimated positive impacts of a fruit and vegetable advertising campaign.  The authors concluded: "Sustained, well-executed social marketing is effective in improving nutrition knowledge, attitudes and consumption behaviour. The Go for 2&5 campaign provides guidance to future nutrition promotion through social marketing."

Despite Dietary Guidelines, federal government promotes high-fat cheese through dairy checkoff

For many years, there has been a tension between the federal government's recommendations for a nutritious diet and the government's promotion of high-fat beef, pork, and cheese through the federal commodity checkoff programs.

For example, in 2005 U.S. Food Policy described the dairy checkoff program's cheese promotion efforts in collaboration with fast food restaurants.

According to USDA’s report to Congress, the Dairy Board’s campaign with the motto, "Ahh, The Power of Cheese," is targeted at "cheese lovers," with an emphasis on "cheese enhancers" and "cheese cravers." The "enhancers" use cheese in their cooking, while the "cravers" eat cheese straight on its own. The USDA report to Congress emphasizes the Dairy Board’s success with cheese promotions through fast food restaurants: "DMI also worked closely with top national restaurant chains, including Pizza Hut ® and Wendy's ®, to drive cheese volume and ensure that cheese was featured prominently in menu items. For example, Wendy's ® introduced two new sandwiches, the Wild Mountain Chicken sandwich and the Wild Mountain Bacon Cheeseburger, nationwide. Both included a slice of natural Colby-Jack cheese and a smoky Southwestern pepper sauce. These new menu items were developed through a partnership between DMI and Wendy's ® that tested consumer acceptance of these sandwiches in select test markets. "

To take the most recent example, last month (April, 2005) the Dairy Board began a collaboration with Pizza Hut to promote a 3-cheese stuffed crust pizza (Figure 5). This pizza features an exceptional amount of cheese. A single slice of the plain cheese version contains 35 percent of the federal government’s recommended daily value for saturated fat and 39 percent of the daily value for salt, based on a 2,000 calorie diet. The Dairy Board features this pizza on the front page of its website, with the address www.ilovecheese.com.

The federal government's dietary guidelines promote a diet with more fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, and more lowfat milk, while still maintaining a moderate total level of food energy.  By subtraction, the recommended diet includes less high-fat beef, pork, and cheese than Americans consume on average.

Michael Moss in the New York Times today provides a fascinating and thorough expose of the dairy checkoff program's role in marketing high-fat cheese:

Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans’ diets, primarily through cheese.

Americans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate. Cheese has become the largest source of saturated fat; an ounce of many cheeses contains as much saturated fat as a glass of whole milk.

When Michelle Obama implored restaurateurs in September to help fight obesity, she cited the proliferation of cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese. “I want to challenge every restaurant to offer healthy menu options,” she told the National Restaurant Association’s annual meeting.

But in a series of confidential agreements approved by agriculture secretaries in both the Bush and Obama administrations, Dairy Management has worked with restaurants to expand their menus with cheese-laden products.

There are many more great stories about checkoff programs that an enterprising journalist could explore (our checkoff tag in the side-bar has 38 items going back five years).  For background, I summarized some of the nutrition policy tensions in a 2005 article for the journal Obesity.  One remarkable story that U.S. Food Policy followed was the $60 million sale of the pork industry's "Other White Meat" slogan from the National Pork Producers Council to the federal government's pork checkoff program.  My questions about that sale have never yet been answered.

Update (3 pm): On this topic, see the Volokh Conspiracy and the extensive discussion in comments at the NYT site.  For a while today, this issue ranked at the top of the Google Blogsearch business page.

Upcoming talks (Fall 2010)

I have several upcoming talks on U.S. Food Policy topics:

Mon, November 1, 12:30 p.m., Boston, MA.  Harvard Medical School, Tosteson Medical Education Center, 260 Longwood Ave, room 309.  Free.  Introduction to selected U.S. food policy topics, addressed to medical students.

Wed, November 3, 12:00 p.m., Boston, MA.  Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University (Boston Campus), Jaharis Building, 150 Harrison Avenue, Behrakis Auditorium.  Free.  Introduction to selected U.S. food policy topics, addressed to nutrition students.

Tues, November 9,  Denver, CO.  Tufts University Alumni Association event during the American Public Health Association (APHA) Conference.  Black Pearl restaurant, 1529 South Pearl Street.  There is a fee, and alumni are being allowed to register first.  Discussion of organic, local, and conventional agriculture.

Wed, December 1, 12:10 p.m., Davis, CA.  UC Davis, Nutrition Department, Program in International and Community Nutrition.  Free.  Seminar on food security measurement and policy in developed countries.

Choices Magazine issue on economics and obesity

The new issue of Choices Magazine, the outreach magazine for the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA), includes a collection of articles on the theme, "Addressing the Obesity Challenge."

Some of the articles grew out of an interesting conference here at UC Davis last May.  Mary Muth organized and edited the series.  Helen Jensen and I contributed an article on food assistance programs, emphasizing that these programs do much more than just boost food intake.  I started drafting a few words about several more articles, but, better, here are links to the whole set.

Theme Overview: Addressing the Obesity Challenge
Mary K. Muth

Increasing rates of obesity and the associated effects on health of the U.S. population are often in the news recently. The set of papers in this theme describe measures of the costs of obesity, consider some of the contributors to increases in obesity, and evaluate current and potential solutions.

The Costs of Obesity and Implications for Policymakers
Eric A. Finkelstein, Kiersten L. Strombotne, and Barry M. Popkin

The increase in obesity prevalence has had profound economic consequences on state and federal government agencies and on employers. We present the most recent estimates of direct and indirect costs of obesity. We then discuss the implications of these costs for public and private payers.

Food Environment, Food Store Access, Consumer Behavior, and Diet
Michele Ver Ploeg

Lack of access to affordable, healthy food in some neighborhoods is hypothesized to lead to poor diet, obesity, and other diet-related diseases. Estimates show that access to healthy food is a problem for a small percentage of the population. Many, but not all, low-income households shop where food prices are relatively low.

Farm Policy and Obesity in the United States
Julian M. Alston, Bradley J. Rickard, and Abigail M. Okrent

This article shows that U.S. farm policies have had generally modest and mixed effects on prices and quantities of farm commodities, with negligible effects on the prices paid by consumers for food and thus negligible influence on dietary patterns and obesity.

More Than Just Food: The Diverse Effects of Food Assistance Programs
Helen H. Jensen and Parke E. Wilde

U.S. food assistance programs enhance nutrition and reduce food insecurity through diverse activities. The programs provide food directly, offer nutrition education, place limits on foods obtained with program benefits, and alleviate "boom and bust" cycles associated with food insecurity. Thus, their potential effects on obesity come through various mechanisms.

Can Nutrition Labeling Affect Obesity?
Joanne E. Arsenault

Nutrition labeling should help consumers make healthier food choices and encourage food manufacturers to produce healthier products. Some evidence exists for such effects, but it is less clear and difficult to assess if nutrition labeling impacts obesity.

Can Taxes on Calorically Sweetened Beverages Reduce Obesity?
Jessica E. Todd and Chen Zhen

This article reviews the emerging body of economic research that attempts to determine how large of a tax on calorically sweetened beverages—and in what form—would be effective in causing a noticeable decline in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States.

Behavioral Economics: A New Heavyweight in Washington?
Sean B. Cash and Christiane Schroeter

Behavioral economic research has shown that individuals rely heavily on subtle external cues or nudges that influence what and how much we eat. Promising results from experimental settings in lunchrooms, grocery stores, and labs are now shaping food and obesity policies, but not without controversy.

Starved for Attention: A Double Standard

A collaboration between Doctors Without Borders and the VII photo agency recently produced two documentary segments in a series titled Starved for Attention: "The U.S. Standard" and "A Double Standard." 

The first segment praises the U.S. WIC program for women, infants, and children.  The second segment criticizes the corn/soy blend long used in U.S. food aid packages. 

For some additional background on efforts to reformulate international food aid, the Doctors Without Borders site includes related 2008 conference materials, including presentations and discussion by my Friedman School colleagues Patrick Webb and Dan Maxwell. 

Taken together, the thesis of the paired documentary segments may be that U.S. and European food aid programs should provide high quality nutrition supplementation throughout the world, rather than treating their own children better.  The accompanying petition says, "This double standard must stop."

That fairly broad policy prescription goes well with the film's indictment of the world's injustice toward children who have the misfortune to be poor.  For many other purposes, I prefer policy advocacy that goes beyond changes in the nutrition formulations used by U.S. and European food aid programs.  I especially like advocacy for food aid reforms that are more strongly nested in a vision for economic development.  Good starting places for reading on those topics are the websites of IFPRI and Oxfam.