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At 6 feet and 200 pounds, Fabian Chang <\/b>must fuel an ample frame for the grind of medical studies. Yet for one week in December, he ate only what he could buy for $30. That\u2019s the average weekly benefit paid nationally under the federal food stamps program, says the School of Medicine student, whose week was an odyssey in belt-tightening.<\/p>\n
Chang (MED\u201916) conceived this \u201cSNAP challenge\u201d (SNAP\u2014Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program\u2014is the food stamps program\u2019s formal name) for himself and others on the Medical Campus, and during last month\u2019s weeklong regimen, he didn\u2019t go hungry. But he discovered, as have families on food stamps<\/a>, that fending off an empty stomach means making do with a malnourishing menu. His fresh food ran out by day five, leaving him to end the week subsisting on eggs, bread, rice, and pasta.<\/p>\n \u201cI was able to get enough food,\u201d he says, \u201cbut it was definitely difficult to maintain a healthy diet.\u201d And with the expiration of the portion of the Obama stimulus devoted to SNAP, things like coffee were an unaffordable luxury.<\/p>\n In advance of continued congressional debate<\/a> over whether to cut SNAP, about 15 MED students and deans took the SNAP challenge, sponsored by the school\u2019s Student Nutrition Awareness & Action Council<\/a>. The goal was to raise future doctors\u2019 awareness of the nutritional challenges faced by poor patients.<\/p>\n Boy, was it raised.<\/p>\n \u201cMy body feels BAD,\u201d one participant wrote on a blog<\/a> set up for the experiment, after just two days on her regimen. \u201cI\u2019m not sure if the food has gone bad or was low-quality to begin with, but after my lunch of beans and meat yesterday around 3 p.m., I felt physically ill at school and had to come home to take a break and drink lots of water. I also notice that because my meals aren\u2019t nutritious, no matter how much I eat, I don\u2019t ever feel satisfied.\u201d Another blogger reported that the experience prompted her to volunteer at a food bank.<\/p>\n Indeed, while few Americans starve\u2014there\u2019s an obesity epidemic, notes SNAP challenge taker Dan McGrail (MED\u201916)\u2014shopping becomes stressful on a tight budget. \u201cIt is really difficult to walk through the store and pass up on items like bread because you think it will put you over budget,\u201d McGrail says. \u201cIt is a challenge to obtain a healthy meal.\u201d (A Harvard study<\/a> corroborates the unhealthy aspects of eating under the constraints of SNAP, while also noting that it is <\/i>possible to go hungry on the program: recipients may run out of food at month\u2019s end, since benefits are paid at the start of each month.)<\/p>\n Before embarking on the challenge, Iris Trutzer (MED\u201921) confessed to feeling terror at a mere $30 budget, mitigated only by the fact that she knew she\u2019d be able to eat normally again after seven days. \u201cWe all have to keep in mind that we\u2019re not living like a person who lives on SNAP benefits,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be off this in a week, and we\u2019re also living with a full kitchen in a house that has heating and no utilities insecurity, no housing insecurity. So we\u2019re doing this very much in a vacuum.\u201d<\/p>\n While student participants interviewed hoped to increase awareness of how paltry the SNAP food allotment is, their main goal was to show their aspiring-doctor peers that the condition of malnourished patients is not necessarily the patients\u2019 fault. \u201cIncreasing the empathy of future health care providers\u2014understanding where patients are coming from, the challenges they face\u2014will hopefully help us be better providers of care,\u201d McGrail says.<\/p>\n \u201cFor some of our kids in our clinic, SNAP can be a lifeline,\u201d says Megan Sandel, a MED associate professor and a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center<\/a>. Some of her patients have had problems ranging from inactivity to disruptive school behavior after their families\u2019 food stamp benefits were cut, she adds.<\/p>\n Chang borrowed the one-week-on-SNAP idea from U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who had done it while serving as mayor of Newark, N.J. It has been an education unlike that of medical school, teaching Chang the fine art of food budgeting: \u201cThe cheapest meat pieces are these chicken leg quarters that are like a dollar a pound.\u2026If you budget those chicken quarters, you can get two meals out of them.\u201d Frozen and in-season vegetables are also good buys, he discovered, but \u201cfruits are a luxury.\u201d<\/p>\n Canned beans, a good protein source, are more expensive than dried ones, but don\u2019t need cooking, he notes. But he\u2019s also learned that splurging to save a night\u2019s cooking is a privilege denied those on SNAP.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re on that tight budget of $30, you have to cook every meal,\u201d he says. \u201cIt gave me a level of understanding about people who may be at the poverty line who are struggling to make ends meet, and they might have two jobs\u2014where do they find the time to cook all the food and plan?\u201d<\/p>\n