As of 19 December 2025, eighteen states have been approved for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) waivers restricting the purchase of "junk food" with government-funded SNAP benefits. While I'm fundamentally in agreement with why these states have applied for these waivers, I find the entire implementation to be nothing more than performative government posturing at its worst.
The argument that the government should restrict junk food from SNAP benefit purchases stems from the idea that many of those individuals who use SNAP are also more likely to rely on other government-funded programs for their healthcare, such as Medicaid, Medicare, or heavily subsidized Affordable Care Act marketplace plans. Likewise, there have been many studies, such as this one by the National Institute of Health's Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition from 2014, which prove that individuals on SNAP are more likely to be overweight or obese and eat a poorer quality diet than those not on SNAP.
In other words, by allowing junk food to be purchased, the government is not only spending billions on the front-end but also spending billions on the back-end when SNAP users' poor eating habits turn into inevitable poor health outcomes such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and other chronic ailments. I cannot argue with that logic and agree fully with it. However, the way which these current crop of waivers are being implemented will not improve health outcomes.
I currently live in the State of Oklahoma, which was approved for one of the stricter SNAP waivers. Where most of the other states' waivers are for soda and soft drinks only, Oklahoma's waiver also includes "candy". Per the latest information on the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) page regarding SNAP waivers, Oklahoma's Department of Human Services (OKDHS) has defined "candy" thusly:
"Candy" means any product marketed or sold as candy, including but not limited to chocolate bars, gummies, caramels, taffy, licorice, mints, chewing gum, or similar confections. This includes candy bars or any products with wafers, cookies, or flour components when they are primarily sold as candy.
Candy also includes non-bakery items that are dipped, coated, or covered in chocolate, yogurt, or other candy coating, such as chocolate-covered raisins, almonds, or similar products.
This definition also applies to equivalent items, including private-label or store-brand products, that retailers categorize or market as candy.
Candy does not include:
• Baked goods such as cakes, cookies, muffins, brownies, pastries, or bread;
• Items primarily sold as baking ingredients, such as chocolate chips, baking chocolate, or cocoa powder.
One may be thinking: What's the problem?
Consider:
Under the definition of "candy" presented above, Hershey bars and TicTac mints are considered junk foods to be banned, while Tastykake products and Pop-Tarts, by virtue of being "baked goods", are not. Can anyone argue with a straight face that Tastykake Chocolate Dipp'n Sticks are less junk than a Hershey's bar? Even if one were to try, the mandated Nutrition Facts of both would disprove their argument immediately: A serving size of one Tastykake is 200 calories, 11 grams of fat, and 27 grams of carbs with 14 grams being added sugars, while a serving size of two snack sized Hershey's bars is 130 calories, 8 grams of fat, and 16 grams of carbs with 13 grams being added sugars. Don't get me started on the ingredients lists for each. As for the TicTac mints, they have so little sugar that they are legally able to be classified as a zero calorie food; 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of carbs, 0 grams of added sugars per serving size but now classified as "junk".
I can think of myriad other "foods" that are as much junk as the candy that is soon to be banned: Sugared breakfast cereals, ice cream and frozen dairy products, breakfast pastries, potato chips, corn chips, cheese puffs, mass produced donuts, cookies, and snack cakes, just to name a few. Yet all of those examples will still be perfectly acceptable under the new SNAP waiver. This is without getting into my issues with the way soda and soft drink restrictions are being put in place (chiefly that diabetics have been told for decades that they need to replace sugar with artificial sweeteners, only to now have artificially sweetened drinks ripped away from benefits the same as sugared ones).
This is why I call these waivers naught but performative government action. Banning high profile "candy" (and "soda" and "energy drinks") scores political points but does nothing to address the issue they claim they're attempting to solve. If the government were serious about improving health outcomes via restrictions on government-funded food subsidy programs, these waivers would be much more strict.
By restricting only some things while saying other junk is perfectly acceptable, the only thing these waivers will accomplish is confusion and anger amongst consumers. They won't have any meaningful improvement in health outcomes, nor will they have any meaningful financial impact to the companies peddling junk to the public on the taxpayer dime.
I'm old enough to remember the pre-EBT days when "food stamps" were actual books of green paper stamps that could only be used at select grocery stores or farmer's markets and only on select items. Returning to that would be better than this half-assed approach. Either go all-in on nutrition restrictions or don't bother at all.
