“Oh SNAP!” That’s So Not Working
“That's So Raven" is a beloved Disney television show that aired from 2003 to 2007, with a revival series, "Raven's Home," that premiered in 2017 and is still running. The original series featured episodes tackling the topics of racism, smoking and diet culture with genuinely funny dialogue. Not to mention, the show's costume design was impressive with some amazing pieces, such as Raven's limited edition Manolo BlahnikTimberland boots.
One very memorable episode, ‘Food For Thought,’ focused on school lunches. Raven, a San Francisco based teenage-psychic, has a vision of all the students in her school becoming wildly obese, extremely lethargic and experiencing acne breakouts due to a change in diet.
The episode starts with students complaining about their lunches. To improve the situation, the school collaborates with a food service which provides highly processed, large-serving meals and snacks. The students love it, but according to Raven, it will lead them down a hazardous-health path.
A memorable line from the episode:
Raven Baxter: People, people! Listen to me, please, listen to me. Put down the pies! Do not maximize! You need to exercise! The scales will rise and so will your thighs!
Raven and her friends spend the rest of the episode trying to educate administrators and students on the unhealthy components of the food they consume.
While much of the dialogue is reflective of the sentiment surrounding weight in the early 2000s, there is still plenty to learn from the episode. It concluded with a “meet in the middle” solution, a refreshing compromise on diet. The school succeeded in offering some alternate suggestions for improving food options at school, such as a salad bar and normal veggie burgers.
Processed food is not evil and is an essential part of the normal American diet. Wheat and other grains are processed into flour. Milk and other dairy products are pasteurized and packaged for consumption. The phrase “from scratch” is often used to describe a cooking process, but it is probably inaccurate, unless you are grinding corn with a barley stone or raising and slaughtering chickens. In reality, most people work with and eat processed food everyday.
The issue is not specifically with fats, carbs, processed food or sugar. Rather, the concern is when people ignore the real consequences of the nutritional effects that over consuming some types of foods have on their bodies.
Deciding on an appropriate diet is a highly individualized process because every body is different. Some people are more likely to develop high cholesterol, while others have allergies to certain foods or experience inflammation or irritation.
Government nutrition programs were started to mainly help malnourished children and parents. Today, we still have a nutrition problem but it’s at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Overall, the nutritional health of Americans has declined in the past 40 years. Chris Edward’s points out:
“SNAP households tend not to “purchase healthy food,” nor do they have “healthy eating patterns” or “nutritious diets.” A 2016 USDA study found that 23 percent of SNAP spending is on what can be called junk food.”
“SNAP households bought less healthy foods than other lower‐income households. The USDA study concludes, “Compared to the SNAP‐nonparticipating subgroups, SNAP‐participating households purchased foods of lower quality overall.” The study only examined correlations, not causations, but the results are similar to other studies: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data “also show that diet quality among SNAP participants is lower than among nonparticipants.”
A balanced approach is needed to improve national nutrition for adults and children. The nutritional quality of school lunches are a particular point of concern because they feed most students. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), during the 2019-2020 school year, approximately 56% of public school students in the United States were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs. This translates to roughly 29.6 million students. School lunches that set children up for long-term health problems from obesity are a clear issue. Obesity is bad not because of how extra weight looks, rather because it has real world health impacts that can shorten your life and cost you money.
Chris suggests that, “rather than building the federal food bureaucracy larger, policymakers should replace SNAP with a smaller Fruits and Vegetables Program or devolve it to the states for more innovative policy solutions.” His solution is pretty similar to the recommendation made by Raven and her friends in 2005.
Our relationship with food is very personal and it starts at home. Empowering parents to make healthy choices is a crucial part of the solution to our national nutrition problems and can help raise a healthy nation.
