White House Conference On Food, Nutrition, And Health
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The 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health was a historic first and resulted in landmark legislation. In his opening address on December 2, U.S. President
Richard M. Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 36th vice president under P ...
vowed "to put an end to hunger in America…for all time." The three-day gathering came at the end of a decade of social, cultural, and political change which had resulted in a sudden awareness of the widespread malnutrition and hunger afflicting many poor in the United States. Eight-hundred academics and scientists, business and civic leaders, activists, and politicians developed more than 1,800 recommendations, which were reviewed by the 2,700 conference attendees and delivered in a full report to the President on December 24, 1969. The
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program In the United States, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, is a federal government program that provides food-purchasing assistance for low- and no-income persons to help them maintai ...
(SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children ( WIC),
National School Lunch Program The National School Lunch Act (79 P.L. 396, 60 Stat. 230) is a 1946 United States federal law that created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) to provide low-cost or free school lunch meals to qualified students through subsidies to school ...
(NSLP), and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) are among the 1,400 nutrition and food assistance programs and recommendations implemented or improved as a result of the White House Conference. In May 2022, President Joe Biden announced a new White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health which was scheduled to convene on September 28, 2022, in Washington, D.C.


Background


Hunger awareness: activists and politicians in the mid-1960s

A long period of prosperity due to
post–World War II economic expansion The post–World War II economic expansion, also known as the postwar economic boom or the Golden Age of Capitalism, was a broad period of worldwide economic expansion beginning with the aftermath of World War II and ending with the 1973–1975 r ...
resulted in a large decrease in the number of people below the poverty line during the 1960s. Still, blacks and other minorities had a poverty rate three times that of whites, and poverty in the deep South, urban ghettos, and Indian Reservations was associated with starvation, hunger, and malnutrition. During this time of growing wealth in America, a number of events brought growing awareness of the extent of hunger and malnutrition. In 1967, Senators
Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also known as RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New Yo ...
and Joseph S. Clark led a Senate subcommittee to Jackson, Mississippi to hold a hearing on poverty. Afterward, Marian Wright (now
Marian Wright Edelman Marian Wright Edelman ( Wright; born June 6, 1939) is an American activist for civil rights and children's rights. She is the founder and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund. She influenced leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr, an ...
), a lawyer for the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is an American civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City. LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Although LDF ca ...
, took the Senators on a tour across the
Mississippi Delta The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazo ...
, to show them the widespread poverty and hunger afflicting families and children living there. Kennedy was particularly shocked and affected and immediately began calling attention to the hunger issue. In 1967, the Citizens' Crusade Against Poverty formed a Citizens' Board of Inquiry into Hunger and Malnutrition in the United States, producing a report that found "hunger and malnutrition affect millions of Americans and are increasing in severity every year," "Federal programs to alleviate the problem have by and large failed," and "the policies of the agricultural committees of Congress and the Department of Agriculture have discriminated against the needs of the poor and the hungry in the interests of the agricultural producers." The Board made recommendations including the declaration of a national emergency, particularly targeting 280 counties, migrant farm camps, and Indian reservations not yet served by food programs. Further, the Board advocated an overhaul of the food assistance distribution programs, including making food stamps free and nutritious school lunches available for all students and free for low-income students. With the national extent of hunger and malnutrition unknown, the first National Nutrition Survey was mandated in 1967. Preliminary survey results were released in January 1969, in time to inform the White House Conference.


Hunger awareness: “CBS Reports — Hunger in America”

In May 1968, CBS televised the special "CBS Reports: Hunger In America," which showed children and families living in dire poverty in Virginia, Texas, and Alabama, and on an Indian reservation in Arizona. The images of starving children in America, and interviews with doctors about the conditions they observed, received wide attention.


Politics, policies, laws

The 1960s were a decade of tremendous cultural, social, and political upheaval. The civil rights,
anti-Vietnam War Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1965 with demonstrations against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States in the war. Over the next several years, these demonstrations grew ...
,
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
,
hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...
, and other movements agitated for change and elicited, sometimes, a violent reaction.
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
nuclear threats didn't deter the optimism, buoyed by a long stretch of global economic growth, that positive changes would come. President
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
initiated his
Great Society The Great Society was a series of domestic programs enacted by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the United States between 1964 and 1968, aimed at eliminating poverty, reducing racial injustice, and expanding social welfare in the country. Johnso ...
, embracing a War on Poverty and many other legislative initiatives. Anti-hunger advocates like Robert Choate, Joseph Clark, and Robert F. Kennedy hoped Johnson would make more efforts to end hunger and malnutrition as part of the Great Society initiative, but Johnson was focused on the need to pay for the Vietnam War.


Commodity Surplus, Assistance, and Food Stamps

Beginning in the 1930s, the government began buying agricultural surplus to support farmers. The
Agricultural Act of 1949 The Agricultural Act of 1949 () is a United States federal law (7 U.S.C. 1431) that is known as the "permanent legislation" of U.S. agricultural policy and is, in its amended form, still in effect. The Act was enacted on October 31, 1949. The ...
allowed commodity surplus to be used for domestic food assistance, but the food aid was devoid of choice, variety, and needed nutrients. The
Food Stamp Act of 1964 The Food Stamp Act (P.L. 88-525) provided permanent legislative authority to the Food Stamp Program, which had been administratively implemented on a pilot basis in 1962. On August 31, 1964 it was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson ...
allowed consumers to pick a balanced basket of food. However, food stamps had to be purchased, and the neediest families did not have the money to buy them. Alternatively, counties could choose to continue to offer surplus commodity assistance, which was free and required less certification paperwork. Many Southern counties discouraged food assistance, using restrictions and offering the food stamps for sale instead of free commodity surplus.


The Child Nutrition Act of 1966

The Child Nutrition Act of 1966, part of Johnson's Great Society, expanded and nutritionally enhanced the
National School Lunch Program The National School Lunch Act (79 P.L. 396, 60 Stat. 230) is a 1946 United States federal law that created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) to provide low-cost or free school lunch meals to qualified students through subsidies to school ...
which had been enacted in 1946, added a School Breakfast Program 2-year pilot, and permanently authorized the
Special Milk Program In the United States, the Special Milk Program, sometimes known as the School Milk Program, offers federal reimbursements for milk served to children in an eligible participating outlet, which includes schools, child care institutions, settleme ...
.


Fights to reform and expand

Some Southern politicians did not acknowledge the extensive hunger and malnutrition in their state and sought to block improvements in food assistance during the Johnson presidency. Mississippi Congressman Jamie L. Whitten, chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, used the power of the purse strings to obstruct food assistance reform and emergency aid, including, even, for Mississippi. In contrast to Whitten, conservative Senator Ernest Fritz Hollings of South Carolina began to address hunger and poverty in his state, prompting other congressional leaders to do the same. At the opposite end of the political spectrum, in 1968 Senator
George McGovern George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American politician, diplomat, and historian who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator from South Dakota, and the Democratic Party (United States), Democ ...
became the top congressional food and nutrition advocate after the assassination of presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy.


1969: Nixon, the Message to Congress, and announcement of the White House Conference

In a May 6, 1969, Message to Congress, President Richard Nixon described the need to: :*Initially increase but then replace the commodity distribution program; :*Increase food stamp benefits and decrease purchase requirements; :*Mandate food assistance programs in the remaining 440 counties nationally which had so far declined it; :*Eliminate county-to-county variations in eligibility requirements designed to reduce participation; :*Pilot a food program, later known as WIC, to fight malnutrition in pregnant women and infants; :*Expand the national nutrition survey; :*Create the
Food and Nutrition Service The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The FNS is the federal agency responsible for administering the nation’s domestic nutrition assistance programs. The service helps to add ...
to administer food assistance and nutrition efforts; :*Have the Office of Economic Opportunity redirect funds to the poorest areas to fight hunger and malnutrition and improve health. To support his initiative, on June 11, 1969, Nixon announced the appointment of Dr. Jean Mayer to organize the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health. Mayer skillfully planned the balance of political, scientific, business-orientation, and advocacy interests among the participants, negotiating with both the White House and the many who wanted to participate.


The Conference

Mayer, designed, what was in effect, a hunger conference and a nutrition conference joined into one.


The hunger arm

CBS news anchor
Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' from 1962 to 1981. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trust ...
paraphrased Nixon's opening remarks: “…the nation cannot live with its conscience if the problems are not solved.” Nixon pledged to end hunger, feed every needy child at school, and raise food stamp spending from $350 million to $2.5 billion. However, many of the hundreds of hunger activists in attendance were not convinced of Nixon's commitment. The
National Welfare Rights Organization The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) was an American activist organization that fought for the welfare rights of people, especially women and children. The organization had four goals: adequate income, dignity, justice, and democratic ...
, La Raza Latinos, the Black Caucus, and others had been strongly advocating a universal guaranteed income plan at the $5,500 level or more. This was far above the $1,600 cash and $720 in food assistance bundle that Nixon's advisor,
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (; March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and social scientist. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he represented New York (state), New York in the ...
, had been pushing in Congress. Anti-hunger attendees largely refrained from carrying out threats of disruptions to the conference, and a groundswell of moderate voices joined the hunger lobby in making demands for emergency food relief for the hungry and permanent income assistance for the poor. Even conservative corporate heads in attendance like Robert J. Stuart, Jr., the president of Quaker Oats, pressed Nixon to act immediately on hunger. The priority list of requests which Mayer sent to the President on the last day of the Conference were for Nixon to: #Immediately declare a hunger emergency; #Set a guaranteed annual income of $5,500 for a family of four; #Restructure and increase food assistance; #Provide all school children with a free, healthy breakfast and lunch; #Move control of food programs from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.


The nutrition arm

Prior to the conference, the 26 panels prepared hundreds of nutrition-focused recommendations, concerning, for example: :*Encouragement of breast-feeding; :*Fortification or enrichment of foods like milk and grain products; :*Universal fluoridation of water supplies; :*National nutrition monitoring; :*Food additive safety. Consumer advocates and industry heads debated issues including food labeling, use of health claims, and revisions to "Generally Recognized As Safe" (
GRAS Gras may refer to: People * Basile Gras (1836–1901), French firearm designer * Enrico Gras (1919–1981), Italian filmmaker * Felix Gras (1844–1901), Provençal poet and novelist * Laurent Gras (disambiguation) * N. S. B. Gras (1884–1956), ...
), a designation which protects a manufacturer from needing approval for a food additive from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA.) The latter debate became particularly controversial when an association representing the largest food companies was allowed to present a pre-packaged set of GRAS recommendations for panel approval.


White house response

Responding to the pressure from the hunger activists, Nixon gave Mayer the go-ahead to announce three actions before the close of the conference: :*Forcing of food stamp programs into 307 counties in the U.S. which still had no federal food assistance program; :*Accelerated implementation of increased food stamp benefits; :*Agreement to meet immediately with six conference leaders to discuss their request for a large-scale, emergency, hunger relief effort.


1,800 recommendations and more White House action

On December 24, 1969, Mayer presented Nixon with the completed Conference Report containing 1,800 recommendations. In return, Nixon announced expansion of food lunch programs to cover 6.6 million needy children, nearly double the number covered at that point. To accomplish this, private companies would be allowed to provide packaged lunches to schools without kitchen facilities. Nixon's total hunger efforts won praise from the biggest anti-hunger advocate in Congress, Senator
George McGovern George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American politician, diplomat, and historian who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator from South Dakota, and the Democratic Party (United States), Democ ...
, who would soon run against Nixon in the 1972 presidential election.


Contributions and outcomes

:*The 1970s saw a sharp decrease in hunger and malnutrition due to food assistance, although the prevalence of hunger rose again with cuts to food programs in the early 1980s during President Ronald Reagan's Administration. :*The improvement in food security of Americans was due largely to expansion, increases, and adjustments of the food stamp program. Nixon and Moynihan's $1,600 guaranteed income program had died in the Senate along with any hope of the conference's $5,500 proposal. :* Meals on Wheels. :*School lunches were expanded, although not as much as Nixon wanted. :*WIC began as a pilot in 1972 and had quick success in healthier outcomes for women, infants, and children. :*Better nutrition and food safety standards. :*Reforms to food labeling in the early 1970s, such as the FDA's first nutrition information label in 1973. :*According to Mayer, the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health permanently raised public awareness of nutrition.


Continuing shortfalls: proposals never realized

:*Barriers to food stamp use remain for those in need. :*Universal guaranteed income. :*Nutrition education in public schools. :*Movement of all food programs out of the USDA. :*Food labeling, health claim, safety, and additive regulations remain in need of improvement.


Further reading

:*
Food Policy Food policy is the area of public policy concerning how food is produced, processed, distributed, purchased, or provided. Food policies are designed to influence the operation of the food and agriculture system balanced with ensuring human health ...
:* Hunger in the United States :*Announcement: ''Features a detailed list of the planned panels and chairs.'' :* :* :* ''This article previewed the Conference and was published in several other nutrition journals in Autumn, 1969.'' :*


References

{{reflist Public policy of the Nixon administration Health in the United States Food and drink in the United States 1969 in American politics