Oklahoma Requests Soda, Candy Be Excluded From Food Stamp Purchases

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Oklahoma has become the latest state to request federal permission to exclude soft drinks and candy from the list of items that can be purchased through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, Gov. Kevin Stitt announced on June 26.

Stitt made the announcement during an event at the state Capitol, alongside Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as part of his “Make Oklahoma Healthy Again” (MOHA) campaign.

According to Stitt’s office, the campaign is a state-level extension of the national Make America Healthy Again movement championed by President Donald Trump and Kennedy.

“For far too long, we have settled for food that has made us sicker as a nation,” said Stitt. “In Oklahoma, we’re choosing common sense, medical freedom, and personal responsibility.”

Stitt said Oklahoma formally submitted the federal waiver to the Department of Agriculture amid growing bipartisan concern about the link between processed food consumption and chronic illnesses.

The move means Oklahoma joins a growing list of states seeking to remove the sugary items from the federal program that helps more than 42 million low-income Americans pay for food each month.

The governors of Arkansas and Indiana each submitted waivers on April 15, citing efforts to reduce chronic disease and ensure taxpayer funds in federal food assistance programs are used to help low-income Americans afford nutritious food.

Iowa and Nebraska have also submitted similar requests, while West Virginia and Utah have begun the process of pursuing similar changes to their SNAP program.

The American Beverage Association, a trade group whose members include producers and bottlers of soft drinks such as The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, and Keurig Dr Pepper, has consistently opposed the move, writing in an April statement that such waivers “won’t make an ounce of difference on health.”

The group pointed to data showing that obesity has skyrocketed in the past two decades while beverage calories per serving have dropped by 42 percent.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that approximately one in five American children and adolescents are obese, while 40 percent of school-age children and adolescents have at least one chronic health condition.

A 2016 report from the USDA showed that soft drinks were the number one food commodity by expenditure in the SNAP program.

The waivers come after Trump signed an executive order in February establishing the “Make America Healthy Again” commission as part of wider efforts to tackle America’s escalating health crisis.

The commission, which is chaired by Kennedy, is tasked with investigating and addressing the “root causes” of the crisis, with an initial focus on childhood chronic diseases. It must also produce a strategy, based on the findings of its assessment, to improve the health of America’s children.

According to the order, America’s health care system is largely focused on treating chronic illnesses instead of preventing them, which has led to a growing health crisis with serious economic and national security consequences.

As a result, Americans are becoming sicker and plagued by illnesses that the country’s medical system isn’t addressing effectively, the order says.

Speaking at the Oklahoma state Capitol, Kennedy said that if Americans want to drink a bottled soda, “you should be able to have that right,” however, he added that the federal government “should not be paying for it with taxpayer money.”