SNAP Is Medicine for Food Insecurity

* Abbreviations: COVID-19 — : coronavirus disease 2019 FI — : food insecurity SNAP — : Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program As we awoke this month to another dispiriting report of the numbers of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections and deaths, a new set of horrifying statistics hit the airwaves. By the end of April 2020, 2 in 5 households with children <12 were food insecure (meaning they were unable to afford enough food for all household members to live active, healthy lives), and, in nearly one-half of these households, parents reported that their children were directly experiencing food insecurity (FI).1 These levels exceed those found at any time since FI measurement was implemented in the late 1990s, including during the previous Great Recession of 2007–2009.1 We cannot address this accelerating threat to our patients as individual clinicians in our examination rooms. Rather, as urged by the American Academy of Pediatrics, we need to advocate collectively to ensure that existing nutrition programs reach all children and that the “dose” of available interventions is sufficient to decrease FI over the long-term.2 Ample scientific research establishes that FI experienced at even the mildest levels has acute and later chronic effects on health, cognition, and socioemotional adaptation. Young children raised in food insecure households are at a greater risk of fair or poor health, hospitalizations, developmental delays, cognitive impairment, poor academic performance, abnormal weight and BMI, and decreased social … Address correspondence to Deborah A. Frank, MD, FAAP, Children’s HealthWatch, Boston Medical Center, 801 Albany St, Boston, MA 02119. E-mail: dafrank{at}bu.edu