Kate Feurtado, a medical assistant at Spectrum Health, browses for produce at a farmers market in Philadelphia on July 15.The Food Trust, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit, uses SNAP-Ed funding to support its farmers markets.
Rachel Wisniewski for NPR hide caption Wholesome eating is a central part of the Trump administration's efforts to Make America Healthy Again.But a landmark nutrition education program for recipients of federal food assistance and other low-income people will cease to exist within weeks after President Trump eliminated it last summer when he signed a massive Republican spending and tax bill.For decades, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program, known as SNAP-Ed, has funded programs such as community cooking classes, farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods, school nutrition lessons and more in every U.S.
state.The program is a "pillar of the public health infrastructure in the US," according to a report published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.The decision to end SNAP-Ed at a time of rising food prices and the Trump administration's push for healthy eating has mystified nutrition advocates and public health experts alike."It doesn't make sense when we have an administration [promoting] the Make America Healthy Again efforts that are focused on decreasing consumption of ultraprocessed foods and wanting to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables," said Tashara Leak, a professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University, "to then get rid of the largest federally-funded nutrition education program that helps to achieve those goals."The White House did not provide specifics to NPR about how or whether eliminating this program aligned with the goals of the MAHA agenda, but said the law signed by President Trump had strengthened SN...