Or, in other words… The U.S. government is subsidizing healthy food.
The $20 million program is being tested in Hampden County, Mass. and is designed to encourage healthy eating among low income families.
Specifically, The Healthy Incentives Pilot will enroll 7,500 randomly selected SNAP (aka Food Stamps) households to receive the HIP incentives.
For every dollar that participants spend on fruits and vegetables using their SNAP Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, 30 cents will be added to their benefit balance – thus cutting the cost of fruits and vegetables by almost one-third.
And if this Dutch research is correct, this cost cutting measure will result in the higher consumption of fruits & vegetables.
And to make things even better, this program will operate in tandem with the Food Bank Farm program already being sponsored by the Food bank of Western Mass. (The FB Farm program promotes local food consumption)
Conclusion
This program seems pretty great to me.
It reduces the cost of fruits & vegetables
It increases the consumption of fruits & vegetables
It increases the consumption of local fruits & vegetables
The only drawback seems to be the $20 million.
Maybe the USDA should raise the cash by slashing some of the current USDA junk food subsidies.
In their latest attempt to stem the tide of British obesity, the national government is asking junk food producers to fund healthy living campaigns in return for a promise to not slap any taxes on fatty, sugary, salty, processed foods.
And in keeping with this new style of governance, the Prime Minister will also be asking London’s crack and crystal meth dealers to fund the nation’s “Say No to Drugs” programs in return for repealing the nation’s drug laws.
They may also looking into new funding arrangements with the tobacco industry, industrial polluters union #666 and NAMBLA.
Pardon me, but WTF
Junk food producers make money by selling junk food.
Junk food makes you fat.
Fat people are great junk food customers.
Healthy eaters are bad junk food customers.
The aim of healthy living campaigns is to turn junk food eaters into healthy eaters
So, why would junk food producers want to fund successful anti-obesity / healthy living programs?
Answer: they wouldn’t.
But, they probably won’t mind spending a few million on ineffective programs if it means they can continue making billions selling crap food to the British public.
.
And for all those non-Brits out there, don’t think that your government wouldn’t sell you out just as quick.
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BTW, you may have noticed that this story pissed me off.
Around the world, health care costs are going up and up.
And with the massive baby boomer population bulge entering their senior years, some governments / businesses / insurance companies are looking for new & creative ways to reduce health care costs.
One of those creative solutions is the construction of public (free) fitness parks (playgrounds) aimed at adults.
And this isn’t England’s first “senior playground”. They are popping up all over the country.
And England certainly isn’t the first country to take this sort of initiative. Parks such as these can be found throughout China, Hong Kong, Macau, Korea…
Credit: Christopher Wanjek
And yet, in my home country of Canada, all three levels of government ignore initiatives such as this in favor of spending millions on marketing campaigns urging Canadians to exercise more and billions on treating lifestyle diseases like type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Instead of giving Participaction $3,000,000 per year for a website and some bad commercials…
Or, if they were really serious, they could siphon off 1/1000th of the approx. $183 billion (2009) spent nationally on health care and build 3,050 new fitness parks per year.
($183 B ÷1000 ÷$60,000 per park = 3050 new fit parks)
And who knows, maybe the cost of the new fit parks will actually result in a net savings for government as the costs associated with obesity and related lifestyle diseases decrease.
.
Because, as my Grandma used to say, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
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