ISSN: 2155-9600
Eileen Kennedy
Tufts University, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nutr Food Sci
Three nutrition assistance programs in the United States: SNAP (formerly Food Stamps), WIC and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) serves as the backbone of the nutrition safety net in the USA. These programs have been successful in achieving many of their initial goals of improving food purchases, food intake and/or nutritional status of low-income, vulnerable Americans. The emphasis in these programs has now broadened to also include an obesity prevention focus. Recent changes in program components demonstrate the revised objectives of the program. SNAP, WIC and the NSLP increase economic access to an adequate diet but access alone is unlikely to be the total solution to obesity prevention. An ecological approach, incorporating the nutrition programs, appears to be a more promising strategy to leverage the impact of SNAP, WIC and NSLP.
Email: Eileen.Kennedy@tufts.edu