Dollars to Pounds: Boosting
Purchasing Power to Lower Obesity Rates
- September 24, 2014
- By: Chris DeFrancesco
- Category: Science & Health, UConn Health
In
January, as one of the first major initiatives of the Academic Vision, the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity will move to UConn
from Yale University. The move will allow Rudd faculty to expand their work and
build new collaborations with UConn experts on nutrition, public policy, psychology,
agriculture, economics and obesity. Every Wednesday throughout this semester,
read about the cutting-edge work spearheaded by UConn and Rudd investigators.
For many
low-income families, eating healthy is not about access to food but about access
to the right kinds of food within their budgets. One obesity researcher is
studying how to change that.
Tatiana
Andreyeva, Associate Research Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics
Tatiana
Andreyeva, associate research professor of agricultural and resource economics,
is investigating the effectiveness of financial incentives to purchase fresh
produce at farmers markets by participants in the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP, more commonly known as Food Stamps).
“We know
that consumption of fruits and vegetables among SNAP participants is much lower
than recommended levels,” said Andreyeva, who leads economic initiatives at the
Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. “One way to encourage SNAP
participants to buy more fruits and vegetables is by reducing the cost of
procure to them.”
Under the
current federal farm bill, the Agricultural Act of 2014, programs that provide
fruit and vegetable purchasing incentives to SNAP participants are eligible for
$100 million in grants over the next five years through the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
Funding
will enable SNAP participants to double their purchasing power when they buy
produce at farmers markets. For example, someone using $10 in SNAP benefits
would have $20 in purchasing power, essentially doubling the purchase amount of
healthy foods, according to Andreyeva.
“And when
we’re talking about farmers markets, we’re also helping local farmers,” she
said.
With the
new funding authorized by the farm bill, there’s a lot of potential to expand
these types of programs nationwide, according to Andreyeva.
“We’re
looking at a lot of programs around the country, how sales change and how
consumption changes.”
In
addition to economic incentives, Andreyeva is looking at changes in the Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which
provides low-income mothers and their children up to age 5 with healthy food,
nutrition education, and medical referrals.
Using
data from a New England supermarket chain, she is evaluating the impact of 2007
changes in WIC food packages on food purchases among WIC participants.
The data
from the grocery chain categorizes households based on the use of WIC vouchers
without identifying the purchasers. From that information, researchers already
know that the WIC food package revisions resulted in increased purchases of
fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and less buying of fruit juice and
whole milk, said Andreyeva.
Now she is
determining the effect on all food purchases among WIC participants.
“On one
hand we know they’re buying more fruits and vegetables, which is good, but they
also may be buying more unhealthy foods,” said Andreyeva. “There might be an
indirect effect, a ‘spillover,’ as economists say, that comes from policy
change, which we want to evaluate.”
Andreyeva
has been researching the economic issues surrounding obesity and food policy
since 2002, and at the Rudd Center since 2006. Before joining Rudd she worked at
the RAND Corporation on a variety of health policy issues, including health
promotion, retirement behavior, health care systems, obesity, and mental
health.
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