States May Now Apply For SNAP Restrictions on “Junk Foods” like Soda and Candy

Upon its inception, by president Trump’s executive order, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, led by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,  was tasked with creating a report detailing the factors that are contributing to the “Chronic Disease Crisis” in our country, and was given 100 days to complete it. The final report, which was released this May, found the top four drivers of the crisis to be poor diet, aggregation of environmental chemicals, lack of physical activity, and overmedicalization. 

After the release of the report, MAHA announced that states could apply for waivers to restrict SNAP recipients from using their benefits to buy “junk foods”. Once granted the waiver, states can choose which items they restrict, with the most often restricted items being soda, energy drinks, and candy. In support of the upcoming SNAP restrictions, HHS Secretary Kennedy Jr. stated “If you want to buy  a sugary soda, you ought to be able to do that. US taxpayers should not pay for it.” at the Great American Farmer’s Market press conference last week. These are the first restrictions we have seen in the history of SNAP, and as of August 4th, twelve states including Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, Indiana, Nebraska, Utah, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, and West Virginia have applied for and been granted the waiver, which is set to be implemented in 2026. 

The initial release of the report was met with much criticism about its scientific validity, with NOTUS reporting multiple sources cited in the report to be non-existent and STAT News claiming they were mis-cited by the report. The impending SNAP restrictions, similarly, have been met with backlash. As early as 2017, years before the waivers we are currently seeing were signed into practice. Economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach testified in front of the Committee on Agriculture about the effectiveness of restricting purchases for SNAP users.  Highlighting the major challenges such restrictions can pose, she said “I believe that SNAP restrictions: will be difficult to structure in practice, will be inefficiently targeted, and in many cases…will be unlikely to change consumption patterns”. Her critiques have since been supported by multiple organizations as states continue to be granted waivers. Nebraska Appleseed, a non-profit public interest law firm released a statement in response to their state’s having been granted a SNAP waiver, saying “This [waiver] not only adds to the many hoops SNAP participants already jump through to receive food benefits, but also imposes burdensome administration requirements on grocers, which can be especially harmful for small businesses”. The fact that states are able to make their own decisions about what counts as a “soft drink” or a sweetened beverage, can make it difficult and confusing for retailers and customers to determine which products are eligible and which are not. Nebraska, for example, has decided that all carbonated non-alcoholic beverages containing any sweetener fall into this category, whereas Texas has stated that any non-alcoholic beverage, carbonated or not, that contains more than five grams of added sugar is subject to the restriction. Not only does this potential confusion impact retailers, but it can also add to the already significant stigma related to SNAP users, which is detailed in Professor of Economics Craig Gundersen’s paper “Ensuring the dignity and autonomy of SNAP recipients”. 

Along with backlash from economic and food security scholars and food-justice centered organizations, SNAP recipients themselves seem to be opposed to the restrictions. A survey conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in June 2024 found that most SNAP participants, regardless of political affiliation, supported policies to expand SNAP, whereas restrictive policies were broadly unpopular. This feedback is significant  because SNAP users are the ones most directly impacted by these changes. As these are the first restrictions imposed since the inception of SNAP, there are very few studies examining the impact they might actually have on the health of SNAP recipients. It will be many months before we see how they perform in practice.