The USDA Food and Nutrition Service released “Leveraging the White House Conference to Promote and Elevate Nutrition Security: The Role of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service” to highlight ways FNS is supporting – and will continue to support – the President’s goal to end hunger, reduce diet-related diseases by improving healthy eating and physical activity, and eliminate disparities surrounding them by 2030.
FNS’s work aligns closely with the National Strategy, which outlines steps the government will take, while calling on the public and private sector to address the intersections between food, hunger, nutrition, and health.
Pillar 1: Improve Food Access and Affordability
End hunger by making it easier for everyone—including individuals in urban, suburban, rural, and Tribal communities, and territories—to access and afford food.
- FNS reevaluated the Thrifty Food Plan, resulting in a 21% increase in maximum Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit amounts for a family of four.
- FNS is making online purchasing an option for households using SNAP and will do the same in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC. Nearly 3.5 million SNAP households shopped online in August 2022, a substantial increase from 35,000 households in March 2020.
- FNS is using $390 million from the American Rescue Plan Act for outreach, innovation, and modernization in WIC and the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program.
- FNS is working to expand the reach of The Emergency Food Assistance Program in underserved remote, rural, Tribal, and/or low-income areas through a $100 million TEFAP Reach and Resiliency grant initiative.
- FNS is investing in resilient Child Nutrition Programs amid supply chain challenges.
- USDA issued a press release announcing an additional nearly $500 million in Commodity Credit Corporation funds for schools to purchase American-grown foods for their meal programs.
- FNS increased per meal reimbursement rates, totaling an estimated $4.3 billion in additional resources for school meal and child and adult day care program operators.
- USDA issued a press release announcing a $3.5 million investment to fund FDPIR Self-Determination Demonstration Projects, giving eight Tribal nations the ability to enter into their own contracts for some of the foods offered in the program and to better align dietary preferences and traditional foods.
Prioritize the role of nutrition and food security in overall health—including disease prevention and management—and ensure that our health care system addresses the nutrition needs of all people.
- FNS will be working with USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and its network of Minority Serving Institutions to create a national workforce strategy for WIC to better support WIC staff and ensure skilled and culturally relevant care for WIC families. WIC is one of the most powerful, evidence-based public health interventions available, providing supplemental foods, nutrition education, breastfeeding support, and key referrals to health care and other important services to income-eligible pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding women, infants, and children.
Foster environments that enable all people to easily make informed, healthy choices, increase access to healthy food, encourage healthy workplace and school policies, and invest in public education campaigns that are culturally appropriate and resonate with specific communities.
- FNS is engaging with stakeholders to inform school meal nutrition standards, which are expected to be in effect for school year 2024-2025. USDA also recently issued a press release announcing a new $100 million fund to support school food authorities.
- FNS is making comprehensive revisions to the WIC food packages to make it easier for participants to follow healthy eating patterns that align with the latest nutrition science, increase access to culturally appropriate foods, and promote breastfeeding goals. · FNS is promoting healthy eating at all life stages with SNAP incentive programs like the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, Healthy Fluid Milk Incentive, and the Electronic Healthy Incentives Program.
- FNS is centralizing consumer information to support healthy shopping and meal prep for income-eligible households in the Shop Simple with MyPlate app.
- FNS is reestablishing State Nutrition Action Councils through FNS Regional Offices to offer collaborative and coordinated nutrition promotion and education.
- The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion will continue to work with colleagues at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to update the Dietary Guidelines for Americans every 5 years. CNPP’s expertise in nutrition science and consumer research is further leveraged to translate the DGA into actionable consumer messages, content, and tools to serve the public, all housed under MyPlate.
- USDA invests more than $1 billion per year on nutrition education and promotion efforts across all our programs, including MyPlate, SNAP-Education (SNAP-Ed), WIC nutrition education and counseling, Team Nutrition, and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). FNS is restructuring SNAP-Ed to strengthen its impacts on public health and health equity.
Make it easier for people to be more physically active—in part by ensuring that everyone has access to safe places to be active—increase awareness of the benefits of physical activity, and conduct research on and measure physical activity.
- FNS is enhancing online nutrition education and physical activity resources in SNAP-Ed through a database of policy guidance, nutrition education, and physical activity resources.
Improve nutrition metrics, data collection, and research to inform nutrition and food security policy, particularly on issues of equity, access, and disparities.
- FNS is working to improve nutrition metrics, data collection, and research to inform nutrition and food security policy, particularly on issues of equity, access, and disparities.
- FNS is studying the impact of recent SNAP benefit adjustments.
- An ongoing FNS-led longitudinal cohort study tracks WIC feeding practices and participant experiences starting at birth.
Original source can be found here.
