If the federal government shutdown continues, food assistance programs in Wisconsin could
run short of funds by next month. Food share serves more than 700,000 people in Wisconsin
with the average monthly benefit of about $160. The state health department is now asking
the legislature to approve nearly $70 million to cover federal cuts and add staff to administer
new eligibility requirements. This potential funding cliff could hurt people who depend
on the assistance. We turn to Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, a physician member of the Wisconsin
Medical Society and Policy Chair of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
And Dr. thanks very much for being here. Thanks for having me. As a pediatrician, how do
you see the importance of food share assistance? It's something that's absolutely critical
to families. I mean, to put it simply, right, hungry family members is just not a good
thing. It's not good for adults. It's not good for children. And having adequate nutrition
is important for everything else we do in our lives, learning, working, enjoying time
with one another. All of these things are much harder to do if you don't have adequate nutrition.
So when we see challenges to programs like food share, which is also known as SNAP at
the federal level, we see that it creates all sorts of ripple effects that we'll end
up paying for in other ways. Does $160 a month stretch far enough to provide nutrition
for families? Oh, it never does. So the SNAP program, as it's known federally, which is
the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, I want to highlight the word supplemental.
It's not meant to provide all nutrition for families' needs. It's meant to assist with
it. So it, but it does make a difference. You spoke to this, but how important is access
to healthy food in combating chronic illness or child development even?
We know that many things go into child development in terms of staying healthy and so on. One
of them is having all the building blocks. I mean, nutrition is how we take in sources
of energy and the building blocks for our brains and for our bodies to be able to do
all the things we do. There's actually some great research that was done some time ago.
It's well known showing that when you timed the standardized testing in elementary school
kids, where in the months that was, mattered as to whether the children were hungry or
not. Right? So just did they have adequate food in the home actually affected their
test scores significantly? We've seen many, many studies showing these sorts of things.
Does food insecurity also affect children's mental health? Of course. The way of thinking
of scarcity, right? Will I have enough to eat when I go home? The panic that many
families would have thinking about summer before summer programs were introduced for
school lunch and so on can really create a huge challenge for children. Will I have enough
to eat? Do I know where I'm going to be able to eat tonight? And it can create this mindset
that's always worried about not having enough. Do your patients regularly say they are food
insecure and is that growing? It is certainly growing. And the reason they say it is because
in healthcare we've become much better about asking. As you can imagine, there's often
a stigma of saying I can't provide for my family. We don't have enough to eat and so
on. So we're often asking simple two question screeners to be able to find out because you
can't tell just by looking. And that's one of the other things that I think is important
about this. Snap and WIC coverage usage is highest in rural counties in Wisconsin. But
it is a statewide issue that this creates. What are the most nutritious foods that could go
lacking without food share? There's another thing is one particular nutritious food or
anything like that. But what you'll find is that families will often turn to what is cheapest
in an effort to stretch whatever dollars they have furthest. So you'll get more processed foods,
possibly fast food and things like that because they are a lot cheaper because of all sorts
of reasons. What you will see is that they're less likely to get foods that will spoil. So
you're not going to see fresh fruits and vegetables on the same level. Maybe dairy, things like that
because they're not sure when they'll be able to afford more. As a policy matter,
what is the reaction to potential cuts to snap or food share and definite restrictions placed
on the programs? What it'll do is it'll make it harder for families to feed themselves.
It'll make it harder for them to care for their children to be able to go to work as adults,
not hungry and things of that nature. And we're going to see the ripple effect as a result in
other areas. We end up paying more. Frankly, SNAP allows us to not only feed Wisconsin families
but put money back into the economy of local farmers and producers and stores.
Dr. DiPassionov, sorry. Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.