According to Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948: “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and their family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care.” (UN General Assembly, Art. 25 1948).
Over 50 years later, however, and hunger remains a prevalent issue throughout many first world countries, including Canada. Today, 1 in 4 Canadians go hungry (Power, 2011) despite the many federal resources deployed to alleviate it. With limitations on the welfare system, food banks established by private companies and church organizations help augment the Canadian government’s efforts to promote international norms and individual rights.
Historically,
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It would leave vulnerable individuals with fewer options when governmental support is unavailable. Health care visits would increase, crime would rise and a percentage of the Canadian workforce would be sick and unable to contribute to the economy. Moreover, food bank closures would undermine individual rights to health and well being. In a mixed economy, the solutions to reducing poverty must be equally mixed between public and private …show more content…
Food banks actually shed light on a fundamental need in our society and call for active participation, locally, to reduce it. Consequentially, food banks are an indication of us acknowledging the need; we are not ignoring the need and leaving vulnerable individuals to die, due to their inability to fend for themselves.
Poppendieck ( 1994) noted that Lipsky and Thibodeau (1983: 243,244) have concluded that far from masking the hunger problem, emergency food "has led to heightened perceptions of the problem and greater public awareness that the problem of hunger is real .... " by making hunger more visible.” Consequently, food banks help foster an ethos of charity where Canadians feel obligated towards the well-being of other private citizens. One acknowledges that food banks are not the entire solution to ending hunger, nevertheless they are one piece of a broader private and public system/ Until there is an implementation of a broader and more sweeping federal system, food banks essential to ensuring the right to
In Janet Poppendieck's “Want Amid Plenty: From Hunger To Inequality” she argues that America puts excessive focus upon hunger issues among the poor when there are many other important issues that go unnoticed. Poppendieck believes that it is time to find a way to shift the discourse from undernutrition to unfairness, from hunger to inequality. In today's society, there are many food banks, food drives, soup kitchens, etc. Food is extremely abundant in America, therefore Poppendieck's statement is proven true when she states that there is too much focus on hunger. Throughout this text, she strongly supports her claims about hunger, equality, and poverty in general.
There are several programs in the Muncie area that assist those who are dealing with food insecurity. Some of these programs are: Indiana school breakfast and lunch program, Second Harvest Food bank and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program. These three programs help those who suffer from food insecurity but do so in different ways.
With the increase in funding, Canadian poverty within Aboriginal society would greatly decrease. The Government should be “proactive in giving aboriginal people in remote communities the support they need to move to areas where they can find jobs and education” (End First). That way, adults would be able to increase their income in order to have a much more fulfilling lifestyle. It is not only adults who need the financial aid, but also the community and children. In order to help, the Canadian Government should make sure more money is being made available for the First Nation education, social interactions such as community centres, and way of living including: housing, roads and availability of healthy food items. “...The poverty rate of status First Nations children living on reserves was triple that of non-indigenous children” (Hildebrandt). Aboriginal children across Canada need the help of Canadian Government in order to lose this poverty and be able to move ahead. “Persistent disadvantages faced by Canada’s aboriginal peoples in regard to education, employment, health and housing are well-documented/the staggering poverty faced by indigenous children is preventable” (Hildebrandt). With enough Government funding, Native children would be able to get better education, social skills and understanding of their traditions and culture. Schools, community centres
British Columbia (BC) is a wealthy province that provides a variety of publicly funded services to its residents, however, from 2011 to 2012 almost 1.1 million British Columbians and 4.9 percent of Canadian children were affected by food insecurity (Rideout & Kotasky, 2014, Statistics Canada, 2015). Food insecurity goes beyond not having enough to eat but also has an impact on health equity and social justice. “Children experiencing food insecurity have poorer school performance, and having not learned healthy eating habits in childhood; they face additional challenges of healthy living as adults” (Rideout & Kotasky, 2014).
“…three major provincial social welfare programs to reduce poverty is assessed for each province across time. These programs are Social Assistance, Provincial Tax Credits, and Workers’ Compensation” (Weaver, Habibov & Fan, 2011). As the quote explains, these plans seek to reduce the appearance of poverty across different provinces across Canada as well as to monitor how changing government officials may or may not have an impact on the overall financial standings within each individual province and/or territory. It is unclear whether or not poverty standings will begin to change in Canada and across the world. It is the responsibility of the governments and community leaders to ensure that residents within the community have adequate access to the necessary resources and funds needed in order for highest quality of life possible. “Many elements of false consciousness (particularly denial of injustice and exploitation, rationalization of social roles, and false attribution of blame) are directly relevant to attributions for poverty and wealth and are considered to be key mechanisms through which individuals justify the system” (Godfrey & Wolf, 2015). Without civil and unbiased leadership, there will continue to be issues at the structural level of any given
Nutrition and food security are among the top 4 social indicators of health in Canada, with limited access to nutritious, affordable food linked to poor health. (*According to the Canadian Medical Association 's What Makes Us Sick? 2013 report.) Food insecurity in Canada*:
Poverty is regarded as the major cause of food insecurity. A household food security depends on access to food. America has access to good healthy food. However, a family too poor to buy them do not enjoy food security. Rosenbaum and Neuberger (2005) report that each year the number of people using government food assistance programs grows. “Food stamps are targeted to those with the greatest need for help in purchasing food… [and] helps to lessen the extent and severity of poverty (Rosenbaum and Neuberger 2005)”.
...ies and nonprofits to expand and improve participation in federal nutrition programs and make sure all families have convenient access to reasonably priced, healthy food. The FRAC believes that even during the recession the United States could have ended hunger, however it is not practical to do so if the nation’s economy does not regain strength and starts to grow again. To provide people with jobs that have good wages and benefits to support families would need fiscal and monetary policies that restore and sustain growth
Food insecurity can be “broadly defined as having limited access to adequate food” (Nguyen, Shuval, Bertmann, & Yaroch, 2015). While one might think that low income individuals who do not know where their next meal is coming from would be thin or underweight, many of those facing food insecurity instead struggle with obesity. This paradox may be a result of the very programs implemented to combat food insecurity in low income families. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a federal assistance program that gives money to households for food based on income and need. According to a study done by the USDA, “SNAP participants were more likely than income-eligible and higher income nonparticipants to be obese,” with SNAP participants being 40 percent more likely to be obese (2015). The problem is that even though SNAP provides resources to food insecure individuals, the food being provided is not nutritious and is thus contributing to the high rates of obesity in SNAP participants. Healthcare costs and mortality increase as more individuals become obese. Preventing these problems from happening by implementing nutrition education will increase SNAP participants’ health overall and bring down their healthcare costs.
Many people believe that the problems associated with hunger are limited to a small part of society and certain areas of the country, but the reality is much different. In many ways, America is the...
Poverty is a serious issue in Canada needs to be addressed promptly. Poverty is not simply about the lack of money an individual has; it is much more than that. The World Bank Organization defines poverty by stating that, “Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time”. In Canada, 14.9 percent of Canada’s population has low income as Statistics Canada reports, which is roughly about two million of Canadians in poverty or on the verge of poverty. In addition, according to an UNICEF survey, 13.3 percent of Canadian children live in poverty. If the government had started to provide efficient support to help decrease the rates of poverty, this would not have been such a significant issue in Canada. Even though the issue of poverty has always been affecting countries regardless of the efforts being made to fight against it, the government of Canada still needs to take charge and try to bring the percentage of poverty down to ensure that Canada is a suitable place to live. Therefore, due to the lack of support and social assistance from the government, poverty has drastically increased in Canada.
Poverty has been a growing problem in America, and it most likely will never stop being one. Someone who is identified as being in poverty lives beneath the poverty line determined by the Federal government. The poverty line in 2015 for a family of four was $24,250. These are the people who are really considered poor. Poverty isn’t just a problem in the United States; in fact, other countries struggle just as much, if not more, than the United States does. Many people struggle to keep themselves above the government’s poverty line, shown by the fact that the percent of poor people in America hasn’t drastically changed over the years. However, it is possible to get out of, and ultimately stay out of, poverty.
Rossett, Peter. “Preventing hunger: change economic policy.” Nature 479.7374 (2011): 472+. Academic OneFile. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
There are two types of people in Canada those who are economically stable and those who are not. The gap has become so broad that society could never reach an equal balance. Due to some Canadians not being employed, financially stable or educated it leads to them developing a lifestyle that could be a harmful to their health, this reason allowed food banks to take place helping those Canadians that are in need by donating food and volunteering to make a difference. The goodhearted people who started them thought food banks would be a short-term response. Now they 're a normal feature of our landscape (Power, 2011). This shows that even though Food Banks were initially a short-term response towards hungry, due to the gap that is placed between the rich and the poor it has become difficult reducing the gap. As the rich are getting richer and the poor are still struggling to shorten the gap, the food banks provide support to the poor by giving them food to eat and give them a healthy diet so they can decrease the risk of harming their health. This is a major issue because try to shut down the food banks do affect the social gap vigorously. Moreover, if they stop food banks many would die of hunger due to their social conditions and the rate of poor individuals would increase causing the social gap to increase. One reason why food banks do not have a huge effect on hunger is because not a lot Canadians, one out of four,
Every morning when I wake up the first thought in my mind is usually: FOOD! I often lie in bed for a few extra minutes, planning out what I am going to eat for breakfast. Seldom as I go through this routine do I stop to think about those who are less fortunate than me. I often take for granted that everyone wakes up and eats breakfast. But this is far from true, not everyone shares the luxuries that we have in the United States. Some people wake up and wonder if they will eat at all that day, let alone eat breakfast. Why? Because food, like many other things, is unequally distributed throughout the world.