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2022 Healthy Eating for a Better Life

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SNAP food assistance benefits linked to lower rates of child maltreatment

Late last year, the Biden administration vowed to increase benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by 30% to help Americans who were struggling to afford healthy meals. Now, it looks like that move might have an even bigger impact than previously thought. 

Findings from a 14-year national study show that states with more generous SNAP policies and more participation have lower rates of children being involved in Child Protective Services (CPS) and being sent to foster care. 

"We knew that SNAP had an important role in alleviating food insecurity and hunger among children. Our findings suggest that investments in SNAP may be of even greater value to the health of children than we knew," said lead author Michelle Johnson-Motoyama. 

Win-win for families and states

The study results show that a 5% increase in the number of families receiving SNAP benefits was linked with between 7.6% and 14.3% fewer state CPS and foster care caseloads. Additional SNAP benefit generosity was also correlated with 352 fewer child maltreatment reports accepted for CPS investigation per 100,000 children.

“That’s a large reduction in potential child maltreatment. We were particularly surprised by how robust the findings were to other potential factors that could have explained these effects,” said Johnson-Motoyama. 

While the positive impact on families and children is paramount, the researchers say states that are more generous with SNAP benefits also stand to gain financially. 

“The costs of having children involved with CPS and placing them in foster care are tremendous,” Johnson-Motoyama stated. “Providing people with nutrition benefits is far less expensive and can save states quite a bit of money.”

These findings couldn't come at a more important time for the SNAP program because the federal COVID-19 emergency declaration that boosts its benefits is set to expire this month. That could lead to a lot of hardship for consumers who rely on the program.

“That could add a lot of stress to families with limited resources who rely on the program to help provide meals. Our study suggests that could harm children and increase the workload of CPS workers,” Johnson-Motoyama said.

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Postmenopausal diets may be detrimental to oral health, study finds

A new study conducted by researchers from the University at Buffalo explored how consumers’ diet choices may affect their oral health. 

According to their findings, eating larger quantities of carbs and sugary foods was linked with a higher risk of periodontal disease among postmenoapusal women. 

“Limited research exists on carbohydrate intake and oral microbiome diversity and composition assessed with next-generation sequencing,” the researchers wrote. “We aimed to better understand the association between habitual carbohydrate intake and the oral microbiome, as the oral microbiome has been associated with caries, periodontal disease, and systemic diseases.” 

How diet affects oral health

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from over 1,200 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative. Participants completed food questionnaires, which tracked the frequency with which they were eating carbs, starch, monosaccharides, disaccharides, and fiber. The team then tested plaque from underneath the gums to understand if the women’s diet choices affected their risk for gum infections. 

“We examined these bacteria in relation to usual carbohydrate consumption in postmenopausal women across a wide variety of carbohydrate types: total carbohydrate intake, fiber intake, disaccharide intake, to simple sugar intake,” said researcher Amy Millen, Ph.D.

Ultimately, the researchers observed a clear link between diet and oral health. They found that sugar intake was specifically linked with an increase in the Leptotrichia spp. bacteria, which may increase the risk for gingivitis. 

The team also learned that greater consumption of carbs and sucrose was associated with a higher risk of Streptococcus mutans. This bacteria may increase the risk of tooth decay and cardiovascular disease. 

Moving forward, the team plans to do more work in this area to better understand how these oral health risks may affect full body health. 

“As more studies are conducted looking at the oral microbiome using similar sequencing techniques and progression or development of periodontal disease over time, we might begin to make better inferences about how diet relates to the oral microbiome and periodontal disease,” Dr. Millen said.