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An essay on food security
An essay on food security
Importance of food security
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Hillside-Quadra: Interactive Family Kitchen 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). Health equity and social justice occur when individuals have equal opportunities …show more content…
A community health assessment of the Hillside-Quadra area was performed and considered various aspects of the community, including the population, the socioeconomic environment, and health and social services. Personal communication with some of the residents determined that food insecurity is of major significance for many in the community. “Food insecurity exists within a household when one or more members do not have access to the variety or quantity of food they need due to lack of money” (Statistics Canada, 2015). Community kitchens (CK), are easily adapted to an IFK concept, have been implemented by two communities within Victoria (Appendix B; Personal Communication) and are capable of serving as a public health initiative that benefits the communities they serve (Iacovou et al., …show more content…
4). It is a complete community action start-up kit that has everything needed to run a kids’ cooking club. However, to promote family health, it is important to find ways to involve the entire family. A similar campaign to IFKs in the United Kingdom found the greatest strength of the program was the relationship building between parents and children (Mackereth, 2007). Program sessions offered family members the opportunity to experience a sense of sharing and cooperation which contributed to an understanding of how to interact with others in groups (Mackereth, 2007). Learning how to interact in a group has the potential to improve children’s relationship building skills. It is important to develop relationship building skills because, studies regarding food insecurity indicate that children who are hungry or at risk of hunger experience greater risk for impaired social skills (Jyoti et al.,
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.
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.
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*:
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.
Poverty in Canada is rising and it needs to stop now! According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development or the OECD the poverty rate in Canada has been on a steady rise in the mid 1900’s until the late 2000’s. The two most affected types of people are children at 38 percent and aboriginal or First Nations people at 11 percent. The rest of the population stands at 4.3 percent on the scale of poverty in Canada said Food Banks Canada. There are tons of reasons why poverty is rising and why people are living in poverty, like drug or alcohol addiction. There are many more reasons why the poverty rates are so high, a recent poll indicated that 51 percent of people living in poverty are not in control of the reason why they are poverty, 11 percent of people do not know why or unsure of why people live in poverty and 37 percent of people say that people living in poverty aren’t doing enough to help themselves. There are also a lot of ways to help stop poverty or help the people who are living in poverty, for example make a video about it and help make people aware that poverty in constantly around them. Another way to help people living in poverty is by volunteering at a food bank like the Salvation Army. Poverty is all over the world but as Canadians we are concerned and should help make a change and stop the rise of poverty in Canada. (Tapscott & Officer)
In Canada, 1 in 7 people suffer from poverty, this is translated to about 4.8 million people (Just the Facts, 2015). When living in poverty, people are faced with hardships that make it challenging for them to live a proper, healthy life. Living in poverty does correlate with the fact that these families will suffer from a low income. Families that have a low income are more likely to suffer from poor physical and mental health because they are unable to support themselves when it comes to nutrition and cleanly living conditions. Fresh, nutritious, organic foods typically cost much more than freezer and fast foods, charities that help these families do not provide enough fresh foods to maintain a healthy diet, unsanitary living conditions
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 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.
Having been born in Haiti, I have experienced a great deal of events ranging from hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. However the part that sticks with me the most, even after 10 years, is the never-ending famine running rampant within the countries borders . As a child I was preoccupied within my own thoughts and hardly paid any attention to the scarcity of food. Eating more than a meal a day is a luxury that many Haitians will never have the chance to experience. According to the latest findings of the World Food Programme (WFP), approximately 2.5 million Haitians are currently experiencing chronic food insecurity. The food insecurity is due, in large measure, to chronic poverty faced by most of the population. Haiti has been unable to
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.
Canada has not demonstrated social justice in the area of Aboriginal peoples. Canada’s Aboriginal population faces more barriers than the non-Aboriginal population when it comes to education, poverty, and unemployment. Although Canada is known as one of the best countries for education, it has failed Aboriginal Canadians. The education attainment for the Aboriginal population is lower and unequal than non-Aboriginal Canadians. A 2011 Statistics Canada survey shows that only 22.8% of Aboriginal peoples had completed a high school or postsecondary education, which resulted in lower attainments of certificates, diplomas or degrees.
Canadians work very hard to earn an honorable lifestyle however there are a lot of Canadians the still are not able to feed themselves or their family. Most food banks do not have enough donations that they give to fill people as these events rely on donations and most companies instead of donating they throw away the food causing food banks to have less amount to give to the poor (Alison Howard, 2013). This is a serious issue because people have a wrong perspective of food banks but what they don’t know is that if food companies decide to throw it away instead of donating, this causes food banks to have limited amount of supplies which results to not all individuals getting enough food, harming their dietary intake (Howard & Edge, 2013). The social determinants of this would be associated with low income families not receiving enough nutrition in their diet. This shows that families with low income do not receive enough nutrition and due to low income and lack of education, under these conditions they are unable to provide a proper diet and accept food from food banks. Also, another social statue that plays an important role is unemployment because since some people are not financially stable this causes them to have difficulty providing for their families and end up starving and face critical health conditions in their lifetime, this is one reason food banks are presented as they help provide such families
Food security is when everyone in a certain group of people have access to healthy and nutritious food. The North American countries Canada, United States and Mexico have relatively different food security and agriculture which it isn’t necessarily a dreadful factor as long as all countries meet the basic needs for the population so they can live a joyful and pleasant life. It is important to note that when analyzing the food system in a country is not only the food that counts; it is how they are produced; how accessible they are and how to make the most out of it. What determines if a nation meets the criteria of healthy living is: stability, sustainability, access, availability and utilization. These factors combined make all the difference in a country especially if they are in balance.
Patrick Reyes’s uses factual and ethical info to conveys his outlook on the controversial issues on poverty and food insecurity. He addressed food insecurity in relation to four key factors: the physical availability of food, the utilization and nutritional value, the economic and physical access of food and the stability of these three factors. The main focus of this essay was the economic access to food and the government plays a vital role in controlling the access of food. He uses previous and present instances of poverty and food insecurity to show how these two issues connect. The common threads in the relationship between poverty and food insecurity lie in the two different entities of the government and economy.
Food insecurity and poor nutrition is an alarmingly large problem for low income families, especially in developing countries. Many strategies exist to fight this problem, although not many of these address all the factors contributing to it along with all the possible solutions to solve it. In many cases, multiple strategies must correlate and work together so that all the determinants of this issue are addressed and can fight food insecurity from different angles. This essay will discuss the significance of the problem, a range of possible strategies to solve the problem, and go into detail on a select few that will correlate and work together to solve different factors of food insecurity and poor nutrition.