Caloric beverage intake among adult supplemental nutrition assistance program participants

Jessica Todd and M.V. Ploeg

American Journal of Public Health, 2014, vol. 104, issue 9, e80-e85

Abstract: Objectives. We compared sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB), alcohol, and other caloric beverage (juice and milk) consumption of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants with that of low-income nonparticipants. Methods. We used 1 day of dietary intake data from the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 4594 adults aged 20 years and older with household income at or below 250% of the federal poverty line. We used bivariate and multivariate methods to compare the probability of consuming and the amount of calories consumed for each beverage type across 3 groups: current SNAP participants, former participants, and nonparticipants.We used instrumental variablemethods to control for unobservable differences in participant groups. Results. After controlling for observable characteristics, SNAP participants were no more likely to consume SSBs than were nonparticipants. Instrumental variable estimates showed that current participants consumed fewer calories from SSBs than did similar nonparticipants. We found no differences in alcoholic beverage consumption, which cannot be purchased with SNAP benefits. Conclusions. SNAP participants are not unique in their consumption of SSBs or alcoholic beverages. Purchase restrictions may have little effect on SSB consumption.

Keywords: sweetening agent, adult; alcoholic beverage; animal; article; beverage; body mass; caloric intake; carbonated beverage; female; food assistance; human; male; middle aged; milk; nutrition; poverty; socioeconomics; statistics; United States, Adult; Alcoholic Beverages; Animals; Beverages; Body Mass Index; Carbonated Beverages; Energy Intake; Female; Food Assistance; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Milk; Nutrition Surveys; Poverty; Socioeconomic Factors; Sweetening Agents; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2014.301970

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2014.301970_1

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.301970

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().