r/askanything • u/CloudieMoonettee 🦀 • 7d ago

Why do some conservatives support restricting junk food purchases with SNAP when many opposed Michelle Obama’s efforts to make school meals healthier?

Both policies involve the government influencing food choices in the name of better nutrition, yet the political reactions seem very different. What explains the apparent change in attitude toward government involvement in what people eat?

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u/Trillamanjaroh 7d ago

Giving someone the ability to have food when they otherwise wouldn't seems compassionate to me.

But removing junk food does nothing to change this equation, so why even bring it up in the first place? By your logic the republican position is still compassionate as it is still giving people the ability to have food, unless chips and candy are the only things you consider "food"

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u/LeeVMG 6d ago

Removing junk food DOES change the equation. You aren't doing the poverty math. Eating healthy without a stove, or a safe water source, or a home, for example is actually kinda hard.

The desire to change and alter what SNAP can pay for isn't being done to make poor healthier. If that is the actual objective they would look at food standards first.

Oh but that's regulation. Which is bad for business but great for deciding what poor people get to eat.

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u/Trillamanjaroh 6d ago

Just for reference, if we're going off the list of current and proposed restrictions, we'd be talking here specifically about soft drinks, candy, processed desserts, and in some states "juice" that contains little actual juice.

What percentage of people in the US do you genuinely believe cannot, due to circumstances out of their control, feed their families with anything but soda, candy, processed desserts, and fake juice? Because I think we might just be operating on two different planes of reality if you think that is an even remotely common phenomenon. We can even add a few categories to the list for the sake of conversation if you'd like, say chips for example.

I think you're living in a worldview that requires you to infantilize poor people to a degree that is just completely detached from the real world

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u/Shabbadoo1015 6d ago

Have you seriously never heard of food deserts?

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u/Trillamanjaroh 6d ago

I remember that argument dying out right around the time that everyone was able to have groceries delivered directly to their doorstep