The state of Louisiana has restricted the purchase of candy, soda, and energy drinks with the SNAP program.
Not going into effect until 2026, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry says these new regulations will end “the days of taxpayers subsidizing unhealthy lifestyles and eating habits.” Adding that, “SNAP beneficiaries are more likely to have higher rates of obesity.”
Responding to the regulations, senior and political science major Muhammed Raza says “I don’t think we should be restricting people to basic needs. They should be able to enjoy soda and candy if they want to.”
Junior Paloma Mariategui, a musical theatre major from Miami, Florida, concurs with Raza, saying “people who need food stamps deserve to have a sweet option as well.”
The candy and soda ban is a part of the greater make america healthy again movement under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services.
However, “there are more important things than candy,” says Ime James, a Houston-native and a sophomore majoring in arts and communications.
“Whether or not he takes away the ability to buy soda and candy with SNAP, there’s still going to be diabetes and obesity in the United States. I don’t know how many people are dying from obesity or diabetes, but there’s a lot of Americans dying from guns,” said James.
Meanwhile, many students understand this in a continued history of SNAP restrictions. Pre-law junior Keyshawn Crawford considers the new regulations as “not thought out because they already don’t allow people to buy hot food.”
Others might view this personally, like Nicholas Oliver, a political science sophomore who “knew quite a few people benefitting from food stamps.”
“I think it’s really stupid,” Oliver said. “The people who are on food stamps are not the kind of people that are going to a Walmart and spending all of their assistance on soda in the first place.”
Further, these measures might not work. “Banning people from buying soda and candy doesn’t do anything,” Oliver says. It “doesn’t discourage people from buying candy or soda because candy and soda are already obscenely cheap.”
Additionally, Oliver finds Kennedy’s rhetoric on food stamps as “just vile, venomous, nothing.” The secretary of health and human services “has no medical experience” and isn’t “going through any sort of medical reasoning for what he believes he’s doing,” Oliver said. “He’s just kind of doing things because he wants to.”
Oliver understands individuals to act more rationally. People on food stamps are “going to buy things that they need.” Those on food stamps with starving children won’t “buy six bags of Doritos over a week’s worth of pasta or vegetables.” “It’s just a ploy to try to demonize poor people and call them stupid, ” he continued.
