Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., on Tuesday said that he wished there had been more discussion about nutrition during Obamacare negotiations.
Speaking at the National Food Policy Conference in Washington, McGovern said that nutrition resulted in better health, preventing diseases like diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure, and proposed that doctors be allowed to write prescriptions for nutritious foods, an option available among some healthcare providers.
“I’d argue that good nutrition is the cheapest healthcare out there,” he said.
He also addressed school meal programs that changed dramatically under President Obama, pushing back against critics who have said that children throw away much of the food they are given in cafeterias because they don’t like it.
McGovern shared a story about visiting a school and asking students whether they liked apples. When most said they did, he inquired about why they didn’t eat them and they said it was because they didn’t have enough time for lunch.
McGovern, who is ranking member on the House Committee on Agriculture’s Subcommittee on Nutrition, also spoke about restrictions states have placed on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the government’s food assistance program that covers 43 million Americans and was formerly known as Food Stamps. He and other Democrats recently sent a letter to House budget leaders, urging them to protect SNAP and not place addition restrictions on it. During his speech, McGovern said the public needed to be more aware when Congress makes such cuts to food security.
“When people do things like that they need to feel the pain, because they’re creating a lot of pain,” he said.
