White House releases strategy for ending hunger in US by 2030

The White House on Tuesday released its national strategy for ending hunger in the United States by 2030 ahead of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.

Under the strategy, the administration will work with Congress to expand access to healthy and free school meals for 9 million more children by 2032. 

It will do so by working to provide benefits to families to purchase groceries during the summer months, while working with Congress to expand Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility to more underserved populations like formerly incarcerated individuals.

It will also work with Congress on a pilot program to test medically tailored meals as part of Medicare and to expand Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries’ access to nutrition and obesity counseling.

“We’re taking steps to try to make healthier options more readily available, and on the medical tailored meals piece, create a healthcare system that supports those healthy decisions. But we really are trying to foster environments that allow everyone to have access to food and to have access to healthy foods,” a senior administration official said.

The conference, which will be the first of its kind in more than 50 years, will take place on Wednesday. Biden is set to deliver remarks.

The administration also said it would direct the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to propose a new front-of-package labeling scheme for food packages and to assess sodium and sugar target levels in foods.

It separately will work with Congress to expand the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Physical Activity and Nutrition Program, which is currently in only 16 states. It will expand investments in the National Park Service to connect people to outdoor spaces and to make streets safer for people walking and biking.

It will also work to provide more funding for data collection and research to inform nutrition and food security policy, particularly on issues of equity and access. 

The White House did not give specific amounts of how much funding would be necessary to accomplish these goals.