Dr. Dipesh Navsaria on Food Insecurity and Children's Health

Frederica Freyberg:
If the federal government shutdown continues, food assistance programs in Wisconsin could run short of funds by next month. FoodShare 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 doctor, thanks very much for being here.

Dipesh Navsaria:
Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
As a pediatrician, how do you see the importance of FoodShare assistance?

Dipesh Navsaria:
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 FoodShare, 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.

Frederica Freyberg:
Does $160 a month stretch far enough to provide nutrition for families?

Dipesh Navsaria:
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 — but it does make a difference.

Frederica Freyberg:
You spoke to this, but how important is access to healthy food in combating chronic illness or child development even?

Dipesh Navsaria:
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. 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 month 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.

Frederica Freyberg:
Does food insecurity also affect children’s mental health?

Dipesh Navsaria:
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?

Frederica Freyberg:
Do your patients regularly say they are food insecure and is that growing?

Dipesh Navsaria:
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, right, 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.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are the most nutritious foods that could go lacking without FoodShare?

Dipesh Navsaria:
There’s no such thing as 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.

Frederica Freyberg:
As a policy matter, what is your reaction to potential cuts to SNAP or FoodShare, and definite restrictions placed on the programs?

Dipesh Navsaria:
What it will 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.

Frederica Freyberg:
Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, thanks very much.

Dipesh Navsaria:
Thanks for having me.