The United States Department of Agriculture defines food unsecurity as the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, or the ability to acquire such food, is limited or uncertain for a household. Food insecurity also does not always mean that the household has nothing to eat. More simply stated it is the struggle to provide nutritional food for ones family and/or self. The people that suffer from food insecurity are not all living below the poverty line. In 2012 49.0 million people were considered food insecure in the United States of those 46.5 million were in poverty (Hunger & Poverty Statistics, 2012). For some individual’s food insecurity is only a temporary situation for others it maybe for extended period. Food insecurity due temporary situation such as unemployment, divorce, major medical or illness can be become more long term. The vast majority of these are families with children. The Faces of Food Insecurity Food insecurity does not discriminate; it reaches many segments of society (Whitney, DeBruyne, Pinna, & Rolfes, 2007). Even through closely related to poverty, not all that have food insecurities are in poverty. Often it is the working poor that are hit the hardest. The working poor are a group that despite having a job, there income is too low to meet their need or that of their family. Most of the working poor (56%) live in families with children, so that the poverty of these workers affects many others as well (Problems Facing the Working Poor, Kim 1999). Many lower to middle class families will temporarily struggle with food insecurity at various times during the year. For these families government assistance may not immediately available. Appling for Supplemental Nutrition Assistanc... ... middle of paper ... ...alition for the Homeless. (2011, November 1). National Coalition for the Homeless. Retrieved November 21, 2013, from http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/hunger.html National School Lunch Program (NSLP). (n.d.). Food and Nutrition Service. Retrieved November 4, 2013, from http://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp/national-school-lunch-program Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). (n.d.). Facts About SNAP. Retrieved October 28, 2013, from http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/facts-about-snap Whitney, E., DeBruyne, L. K., Pinna, K., & Rolfes, S. R. (2007). Nutrition through the Life Span: Childhood and Adolescence . Nutrition for health and health care (3rd ed., pp. 301-329). Belmount: Thomson/Wadsworth. Woldow, D. (2012, March 28). How Do School Meal Policies Affect JoJo? . beyondchron.org. Retrieved October 8, 2013, from http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php
United States Department of Agriculture. "School Meals." Child Nutrition Programs. USDA, 23 Dec. 2013. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
The United States is known as the wealthiest country in the world. But, there are many people that can't afford to buy food for their families, many are also homeless. “While hunger affects people of all ages, it's particularly devastating for children even short-term episodes of hunger can cause lasting damage."(“Child Nutrition Programs") Child hunger in the United States is caused by poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and food shortage; however there are many solutions to this problem like FRAC strategies, food banks, summer feeding programs, and backpack feeding programs.
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien, director of public policy and research at Chicago-based Second Harvest says “’we’ve seen a real shift in who we serve. A decade ago, it was almost always homeless, single men and chronic substance abusers. Now we have children and working families at soup kitchens’” (Koch). These families that are feeling the effects of food insecurity will not be only ones affected by it, but all of America. Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues.
Food insecurity is one of the major social problems that we have in our world today. The concern about this problem is the increasing number of people that are beginning to experience hunger more often. “While hunger has long been a public health concern in developing countries, it has received varying degrees of attention in the United States, most notable during the 1930s and 1960s” (Poppendieck 1992). In addition to lack of food, there are consequences that follow. People, especially children, who suffer from food deprivation also undergo some health issues such as malnutrition and obesity, which leads to more health care and hospitalizations. “In the early 1980s, most reports of hunger involved families with children, the elderly, the unskilled and unemployed youth, the mentally ill, the homeless and minorities” (Brown 1992; Nestle and Guttmacher 1992). However, a particular ethnic group that is greatly affected by food insecurities are the Hispanic...
Did you know that one in five households in the United States are considered to have food insecurity. Food insecurity is described by the USDA as meaning “consistent access to adequate food is limited by the lack of money and other resources at times during the year” (2014). This affects 31 million people in the United States, which includes 15.9 million children under the age of 18. For example, the Walls family in The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls leaves a great example of what it is like to be under these circumstances. Currently, with prices of food rising to an all time high, so does the number of people not able to buy the basic foods they need to live a full life. By increasing spending on food benefit programs in the United States, guarantees less people who suffer from food insecurity.
President Harry Truman initiated The School Lunch Program (NSLP) in 1946, it was established under the National School Lunch Act. The program provides nutritionally balanced, low‐cost lunches to more than 32 million boys and girls each school day.The NSLP ensures the nutrition,portion, and safety of our children food, over the years do to the rise of childhood obesity the The USDA School Lunch Program is constantly evolving to meet the needs of our youth. Many concerned citizens, such as Eric schlosser author of Fast Food Nation believes that the USDA is not providing our children with the right nourishment. Many parents are taking it into their own hand and creating and joining advocacy groups. It is crucial that our youth receive nutrient
When considering the topic of poverty and hunger, many Americans look outside the borders of the United States. However, food insecurity is an issue that plagues millions of American households each year. The United States Department of Agriculture found that 14.5% of American households faced food insecurity during 2012. These households were defined as having “difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources” (Nord, Singh, Coleman-Jensen).
Gundersen, C., Weinreb, L., Wehler, C., & Hosmer, D. (2003). Homelessness And Food Insecurity. Journal of Housing Economics, 12(3), 250-272.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years,” meaning that America’s children need to start eating healthier, including healthier school lunches. The National School Lunch Act is a fairly recent addition to American society. For, as the world waged war a second time, the United States began to worry about the strength and health of the country’s soldiers. However, in the beginning, selling excess agricultural goods was more important than building a healthy, well-balanced meal for students. Unfortunately, many children coming from poorer families could not afford well-balanced school lunches, so in order to compensate, the School Lunch Program changed its focus to help these students. This program, however, decreased schools’ lunch budgets, and schools had a hard time keeping up with the amount of free meals they had to provide, so they came up with some extra ways to increase revenue. However, in a small town in Massachusetts, one chef makes a difference in the health of the school lunch students eat each day, and proves that hiring a trained chef to cook real, healthy meals can increase profit. Unfortunately, that is not the case in most schools across the nation. The quality of health of the food being served in school lunches is extremely poor and was allowed to decline even more with a new set of rule changes. However, there are some improvements currently being made to increase the quality of health of the food being served to students, including teaching them all about food and its nutritional information, both good and bad. In order for students to eat healthier lunches at school, the USDA needs to implement healthier ...
Many people here in America are hardworking and resourceful, but an insecure economy can have a long-lasting effect on a diverse group of people. One of the greatest manifestations of this is the inability to consistently afford a healthy diet. In a report by done by researchers in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ‘in 2011, 14.9 percent or 17.9 million people in America were food insecure (Coleman-Jensen, Nordic, Andrews, & Carlson, 2012).’ Although many different organizations such as the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” or the SNAP food stamp program has set out to eradicate hunger, by giving assistance to low income participants, to help them afford food, it does still exist in many different people’s lives, at one point or another. While many other underdeveloped countries have harder times with hunger, many of them, due to socioeconomic difficulties, hunger still causes many problems for different people in America.
As of 2007, there have been reports that 48.7 million Americans are or have experienced being food insecurity at some point in their life. According to Central California Area Social Services Consortium (CCASSC), it has been reported that 45% of people who are food insecure are not below the federal poverty line (2012). There are many situations that are created for a person to become food insecure. Some examples of how food insecurities are created are issues with job stability, job loss, low or minimum wages, being a single parent, and/or unexpected expenses that can cause families to sacrifice or relocate money for food to pay for bills such as car repairs and medical bills (CCASSC, 2012). Many believed that food insecurity and hunger are the same thing. However, they are two completely different things. Congressional Digest (2010) stated that, “although hunger is related to food insecurity, it is a different phenomenon. Food insecurity is a household-level economic and social condition of limited access to food while hunger is an individual-level physiological condition that may result from food insecurity.” According to the CCASSC, it has been reported that 40.4% of the citizens living in California are food insecure. Unfortunately, as we hit closer to home in Fresno County, where it has been reported that 41.9% of out own citizens are food insecure
The world that we live in is inevitably problem stricken. There will always be a challenge that we are given to overcome, may that be a natural disaster, war, poverty, hunger, etc. As a whole we need to come together to find a ‘solution’ for all of these issues that are so detrimental to this world and those living in it. Some may be more preventative than the others, however, we must work together in times of distress to rebuild. I will be addressing the problem of hunger and food insecurity in America. Food security is define by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as access by all people at all time to enough food for an active, healthy life. On the other hand, food insecurity is outlined very well by the National Research Council.
In the year 2015, around 40 million U.S. citizens were food insecure (Randall para. 3). Food insecurity can be defined in paragraph 3 by “[having] difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. This 12.7% of American citizens also contains another group - children. Aged 10-17, 6.8 million adolescents struggle with a food insecurity. There have been several years of cuts to the social programs designed to help these people, along with the Great Recession continuing to leave an impact on the U.S. economy (para. 6). Under the Obama administration, $8.6 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. From 1993-2001 under the Clinton administration, former President Bill Clinton’s administration “gutted the welfare system” (para. 15). Because of these budget cuts, the families who rely on food assistance from the government have been allotted less throughout the years. From a sociological perspective, the concepts of sociological imagination, class stratification, and social location are in effect when it comes to child hunger in the United States. Being hungry is an issue larger than any one individual can control.
When we think of that number of people in poverty we know that living in poverty directly relates to food insecurity. A slightly higher number of people are food insecure 42.2 million people in the United States to be exact, including more than 13 million children. Those numbers are astonishing for a country that is so well developed and established. We here are supposed to be the best country to live in the
Poverty struck families and children tend to reside in lower, urban areas. This can mean their distance to full service grocery stores are further; they may have limited access to their local food stores due to cost, and the rising cost of grocery store food according to the mt.nokidhungry (2009) childhood hunger chart. The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines Food deserts as parts of