For years, West Virginia kids have been screened for risk of diabetes, obesity and heart disease, families have spent food stamp money on locally grown fruits and vegetables and people with health problems have learned how food and exercise could heal their bodies.
That work has been funded by a federal nutrition program called SNAP-Ed. In the budget legislation now being considered in the U.S. Senate, the funding for that program has been stripped by Republicans, who support an administration saying its priority is to “Make America Healthy Again.”
While the bill’s cuts to food stamp funding, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has been in the news everywhere, less attention has been given to the total elimination of funding that is aimed at teaching low-income people to eat nutritiously with little money and prevent health problems.
SNAP-Ed is known in West Virginia as the WVU Extension Family Nutrition Program.
At Roane General Hospital, one worker leads the Prescription for Your Health weeks-long program, where people learn that food is medicine and get free gym memberships.
Over the last four years, more than 2,000 people participated.
Melissa Painter, the nutrition outreach instructor for the WVU program, said in 15 weeks, tests show participants lower their risk of diabetes.
“That’s something that usually takes medication to do,” she said.
The program in Roane County is one of the nutrition program’s countless community partnerships. By working with people who know their communities well, they ensure they meet unique health needs and expand their reach.
In 2024, the program reported more than 118,000 participants in its public health initiatives.
The U.S. House of Representatives, including West Virginia’s representatives Riley Moore and Carol Miller, voted to eliminate the program late last month.
Their offices did not respond to questions about why.
“It doesn’t make sense to us why you would eliminate a program designed to do exactly what the administration has said is a priority,” said Chris Mornick, a member of the leadership team at the Association of SNAP Nutrition Education Administrators. “Helping people be healthy is bipartisan.”
The budget bill has advanced to the Senate, where West Virginia’s Sen. Jim Justice sits on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry, which oversees the nutrition program’s funding.
Spokespersons for Justice and for Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, both Republicans, did not answer questions about whether they’d support a final bill that cut the funding.
If the bill passes, the state would lose around $4.1 million it receives to pay for about 40 health educators to offer obesity prevention and exercise programs at places like churches, drug treatment centers and schools in nearly every county.
Kristin McCartney, who leads the Family Nutrition program at WVU, said the end of funding would mean losing the workers who take SNAP recipients to stores and help them pick out the locally grown and nutritious food, and who teach kids to plant seeds, water plants and harvest crops at community gardens.
Last week in the governor’s mansion driveway, next to a community garden, Gov. Patrick Morrisey hosted a healthy cooking demonstration with Angie Settle, CEO of Health Right, a Charleston-based health clinic. It does not receive SNAP-Ed funding.
He showed off the clinic’s mobile kitchen and pointed to the greens thriving in the garden, from lettuce to peppers and herbs.
The mobile kitchen will travel to more counties, thanks in part to about $1 million additional state funding for free clinics that offer mobile services in the new budget year.
His spokesperson didn’t respond to questions about whether he believes free clinics could make up for the loss of the federally funded nutrition program.
In a Fox News interview about the clinic’s work, the governor noted West Virginia has high rates of diabetes and obesity.
“We want to make sure that we reverse those bad trends,” he said. “You have to start one step at a time or one good bite at a time.”
The Family Nutrition Program has been operating for more than a decade in the state. In 2024 it helped screen more than 18,000 kids for diabetes, and about 1,000 of them were referred to nurses and doctors.
Of the almost 12,000 kids who participated in the nutrition lessons, a third went on to eat more fruits, eat more vegetables and drink fewer sugary beverages.
“We’ve been doing it,” McCartney, leader of the program, said.
In his recent request for a federal waiver to prohibit food stamps from paying for soda, Morrisey cited data from the nutrition program’s 5th grade health screenings to show kids were at risk of diabetes. He wrote that the program could also help get the word out about the changes.
“We could be great allies in moving health forward,” McCartney said. “But that won’t be possible if the funding gets cut.”