by The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the nation’s largest nutrition program, helping 41 million participants purchase “nutritious foods essential for health and well-being.”
But a new study from the University of Notre Dame found that SNAP participants in low-income households may not be able to achieve the nutrition levels established by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).
The case study set out to examine whether SNAP participants could afford a healthy diet based on the nutritional values recommended by the DGA. The DGA was created by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to advise Americans on what they should eat and drink to meet their nutrient needs, promote health, and prevent disease.
“Healthy eating is a critical issue, especially in low-income communities where there is a combination of economic and geographic constraints that make healthy, affordable foods less accessible,” said Nitesh Chawla, director of the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Health. Society and the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Notre Dame. “People working within these limitations live in food deserts and have to consider multiple factors when making decisions about their family’s diet.”
As a benchmark, the research team used the maximum SNAP allotment offered to a single person in Indiana in October 2021, which was $250 per month. They divided this amount by day to determine what a person’s daily budget would be. The team then created a linear programming model that considers product nutrition and pricing of items available within a national supermarket chain in South Bend.
“We found that people essentially make trade-offs based on the information they have to try to stretch their funds and maximize nutrition,” said Ronald Metoyer, professor of computer science and engineering and vice president and associate provost for teaching and learning. “Our idea for this study was to use computing to aggregate all the relevant information (e.g. inventory, pricing, and nutritional content) and use optimization to make those decisions.”
The researchers took into consideration the cost per serving of a meal and different dietary guidelines for men and women ages 31 to 50, while minimizing the cost of the diet as much as possible. Although they found that it was possible to create a realistic female diet that fit SNAP monetary allocation and DGA nutritional needs, it was not possible to do the same for men.
The team also looked at the trade-off between cost and nutritional value specifically for nutrients that Americans tend to overconsume: sodium, saturated fat and added sugars. To do this, they left aside the DGA parameters and selected only the most economical food options to cover the SNAP budget. Researchers found a direct correlation between sodium and cost: As the cost of food decreases, the amount of sodium consumed increases.
The researchers also noted that the most difficult DGA parameters to meet on a SNAP budget were daily vitamin and mineral intake needs.
“What we found was that it’s very difficult to meet dietary guidelines for vitamins and minerals,” said Joe Germino, a doctoral student in the Lucy Institute’s DIAL Laboratory, advised by Chawla. “You have to make a conscious decision to look for foods that are cheap enough and really fit your budget. “It just adds another layer of complexity to an already difficult problem when you live in a food desert.”
Census data has identified 11 areas in St. Joseph County that can be identified as food deserts or where a significant number of people live more than a mile from the nearest supermarket. Residents living in and around the area should consider distance to full-service grocery stores, as well as their access to transportation to purchase healthy foods.
These barriers are even more difficult for low-income households to overcome, which could create greater reliance on alternative food sources, such as food pantries. Although the budget per person for SNAP recipients has increased since this study was conducted, due to other economic constraints such as inflation, the researchers believe the results still apply to those who rely on SNAP support today.
“The reason we chose South Bend is because we have areas that are considered food deserts and we are seeing this lack of access to food within our own community,” said Annalisa Szymanski, a Lucy Graduate Fellow mentored by Metoyer and a fellow . author of the study.
The study published in Frontiers in Big Data is just one way Notre Dame researchers are leveraging technology to address this national challenge of food access and insecurity through the Food Information Networks (FINS) project. Led by Metoyer, FINS is funded by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The project aims to thoroughly understand barriers to access to healthy foods, develop technological supports, and implement and study interventions in South Bend and Detroit.
The project will culminate in an app that uses optimization methods to recommend and suggest healthier foods to people based on their dietary goals and budgets. In the spring, researchers will test a version of the app in Rum Village, a South Bend neighborhood. The goal is to test the application to see how that solution helps overcome transportation limitations. The pilot will partner with local Walmart grocery stores.
“Through the pilot, we are testing to see if we promote different suggestions for healthier food products in the app, will that influence the way people eat? Or what if they know there is a healthier product for sale? Szymanski said. “We want to see how this technology, when considering both dietary goals and budget, could realistically impact eating habits.”
Researchers are also investigating how the FINS project could leverage artificial intelligence, such as large language models, to create personalized dietary recommendations.
Contact: Brandi Wampler, associate director of media relations, 574-631-2632, brandiwampler@nd.edu
