Imagine would it be like waking up each morning, unaware of where the next meal will come from. One in six kids face hunger every day in the United States. According to the US Department of Agriculture, over 13 million kids under eighteen years of age live in homes with families who do not regularly have enough food to eat (¨Kids in America¨). There is an overwhelmingly high number of hungry children living in all communities around the country, including Anderson, and something has to be done to fix this problem.
Child Hunger is not only a severe global problem, but a major issue in South Carolina as well. As of 2017, South Carolina's population consisted of 5,024,369 people (¨Vintage 2017¨). Almost twenty-one percent of the South Carolina
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population is made up of children considered to be food insecure, meaning the child worries about where his or her next meal will come from. Many people stereotype a person suffering from hunger to have filthy clothes, a rancid smell, and a skin color other than white. However, in the United States, over fifty percent of households suffering from hunger are white, and two-thirds of those suffering have children and at least one working adult. Many people are not aware of how many children are affected by food insecurity, and the problem is only becoming more rife. Since the 1990’s, the number of families facing hunger has drastically increased by fifty-seven percent. In Europe, one in twenty families face hunger; this is an extensive difference from the United States, where one in six families face hunger (Mcmillan). The No Kid Hungry campaign surveyed five hundred parents and kids, and three hundred twenty-five teachers living in the United States. Fifty-seven percent of the surveyed people claimed he or she was forced to reduce the size of their kids meals because of financial issues or the family just could not afford the meals at all. Some of the older siblings explained that even though they are hungry, they often skip meals or feel like they have to take smaller portions so that their younger siblings will have food to eat (Bologna). Today there are fifty thousand emergency food programs throughout the country that help provide food for families of low-income (Mcmillan). The amount of programs is continuing to increase as the number of hungry people increases, but funding for these programs is limited. More programs are being created, but nothing is being done to help raise money for the programs already put into place. With more funding, these programs already put into place could reach and help even more children. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is a federal program that provides financial assistance for families to buy nutritious food. This program helps nearly forty-five million Americans each month; twenty million of the helped people are kids. Seventy-nine percent of South Carolinians are eligible to receive benefits from this program. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children helps around seven point seven million mothers gain access to free healthy food for their young children. Fifty-three percent of babies born in the United States have mothers that rely on benefits from the program (“Kids in America”). United Way in Anderson, South Carolina has a program called The Snack Pack Program. Volunteers gather at the United Way site each week to help put together food bags. These food bags are served to one thousand students from twenty-four different elementary schools every Friday, so that the students will have healthy meals to eat over the weekend. The Snack Pack Program cost two hundred thousand dollars each school year. According to Liz Brock, a member of the United Way team, there is no more funding to support any more kids at this time. Since United Way is a non-profit organization, donations are very important to keeping the program funded. Because funding is limited, there is a waiting list of students who are in desperate need of help from the Snack Pack Program, but these students cannot receive the help they need. Without the Snack Pack Program, food insecure students might not eat a meal until returning to school the following Monday after the weekend break. Hunger directly affects learning. These students not receiving proper nutrition over the weekend could potentially end up losing up to forty-eight hours of learning when returning back to school on Monday. Food gives the human body energy. It takes the brain at least a day, and can take longer, to fully re-engage in learning if the body is not obtaining nutritious food. Therefore, over a period of one whole school year, these hungry students could lose up to seventy-two days of learning, only putting them further and further behind (Brock). There is an overwhelmingly high number of hungry children living in all communities around the country, including Anderson, and something has to be done to fix the problem.
There needs to be a severe decrease in the number of kids suffering from food insecurity. Child hunger is a global problem, a state problem, and an Anderson problem. Ending child hunger starts now. In Anderson, more funds should be raised to expand the number of children that can be reached and helped through the Snack Pack Program. People should volunteer time to help the United Way organization prepare food to give to those in need. No child should ever have to stress about where his or her next meal is coming from. No child should have to witness his family suffering and feel like he has to sacrifice eating in order for his other family members to have enough food. Also, no child's learning ability should be compromised because there is not enough funding to help provide him with nutritious food to keep his brain engaged. Child hunger needs to be a priority, and it is not. Citizens need to become aware of how enormous of an issue child hunger really is, and citizens need to take action immediately. Let's work together to eliminate child hunger in Anderson, South Carolina, and eventually everywhere in the United
States!
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 many policy issues that affect families in today’s society. Hunger is a hidden epidemic and one major issue that American’s still face. It is hard to believe that in this vast, ever growing country, families are still starving. As stated in the book Growing Up Empty, hunger is running wild through urban, rural, and even suburban communities. This paper will explore the differing perspectives of the concerned camp, sanguine camp, and impatient camp. In addition, each camps view, policy agenda, and values that underlie their argument on hunger will be discussed.
Anna Quindlen identifies that child hunger is not just in other parts of the world, it is also here. She informs readers that, “In most cases these are not parents who are homeless or out of work.
When children receive the nutrition they need, they are more likely to move out of poverty than adults. Read for the World. The dense streets of our country make strolling outside on a beautiful and perfect day or evening exhausting. The streets, roads, and sewers are perfusing with grimy looking, foul smelling, still breathing and talking corpses. Panhandling for food, water, clothes, and shelter all while fighting each other to get near you.
“Is it any wonder that the slogan the advertising people came up with was “The Sooner You Believe It, the Sooner We Can End It”?”. Anna Quindlen has chosen to write about child hunger in America. She persuades her readers effectively because of her use of logos, pathos, and ethos.
As the world population grows so does the amount of people that live without the proper amount of nutrition and food. Hunger in America can be hard to recognize and many people do not realize that hunger and malnutrition is a problem that many Americans face every day. America is the land of plenty and one of the most powerful and wealthy countries in the world, however is well known that is subject to problem such as starvation, considered as “third-world problem”. For decades, Americans have gone above and beyond to aid other countries that were faced with problems such as malnutrition and hunger. Sadly, the US has failed to aid them and millions are currently suffering from hunger. In addition, with how the economy is now, the effects of hunger are getting worse every day. Many Americans are relying and most of them depend on food stamps and private organizations to help with this crisis. The documentary, “A Place at the Table” by Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush present some issues and real life story to explain what is really happening and how hunger and obesity are not problems on opposite ends of a spectrum, but are in fact intricately linked. Poor nutrition, health problem and poverty are all related.
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.
" Effects of Poverty, Hunger and Homelessness on Children and Youth." American Psychological Association ,www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx. Accessed 2 Mar. 2017.
Hunger and poverty will always exist. Needy nations are stuck in a black hole, in which, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. This situation could be fixed, if the poor nations had assistance from those who could spare a few goods. Is it morally good for the better off nations to help or support those who are in need? Who benefits from this sponsorship in the long run? Poverty-stricken nations could seek relief, if the silk-stocking nations aid in supplying goods. Many of the moneyed nations are torn between helping or not, those who are less fortunate. Jonathan Swift and Garrett Hardin have two very different opinions on whether to aid those who were not born into riches. Swift uses a satire for the low-income nations of eating and using
Gundersen, Waxman, Engelhard, and Brown (2010) found in their study that 50 million people (including 17 million children) were food insecure in 2010. Poverty and food insecurity affects the lives of billions of people worldwide and millions of people in the United States. More than two billion pe...
Hunger is an issue that is becoming more and more prevalent in cities across the United States. In a survey released last year by the United States Conference of Mayors’ Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness, it was reported that requests for emergency food assistance rose in 21 out of the 25 major cities that were surveyed. Among those seeking emergency food, 51 percent were in families and 37 percent were employed. (United States Conference of Mayors’ Task Force). These findings alone suggest a changing visibility of hunger where many previously middle class families are become dependent on food aid. This change would thus need to be addressed by institutions and interventions, that focus on the issue of hunger. However, in the same report it was found that “In 95 percent of the cities surveyed, food pantries cut the amount of food each person received and soup kitchens reduced meal sizes. In almost all the cities, pantries capped people's monthly visits as well.”(United States Conference of Mayors’ Task Force). While food pantries struggle to handle the increased demand as budgets are being cut, it may be necessary to approach this issue of hunger differently.
The social conditions in which homeless youth find themselves, may result in absence of or poor access to nutritious food. This can be defined as food insecurity, where an individual has the inability to consume an adequate diet (Health Canada, 2012). For the youth living on streets, education becomes an obstacle, which may lead to unstable work, and therefore inconsistent income. They have to settle with low value jobs to earn just enough to feed themselves on a daily basis – the hand-to-mouth concept. Therefore, there are very limited options that the homeless youth are left with when it comes to food. When buying food, they tend to choose the cheaper alternative foods which are usually unhealthy and have little to no nutritional value to the body. Examples of these kinds of food include pizza, burgers, or perishable food items that are ready-to-eat (Dachner & Tarasuk, 2002). From our everyday experience, one can say that too much unhealthy foods can cause long-term health issues, ranging from diabetes to heart disease. Eventually, the immune system weakens, and serious complications may occur for the individual. It may be difficult for the homeless youth to access any health care services; so many times the symptoms for these diseases can go undiagnosed. At times, the homeless youth tend to go extending periods of time without food, resulting in intense hunger. Hunger is the consequence of food insecurity. It is the resulting feeling of discomfort, weakness, illness and pain – all of which play a great role on the health of youth (Jovanovic, Lecture 9). Though free food is available through charitable food programs such as food banks, they may not be accessible and travelling may not be an option, especially if they suffer fro...
Along with the research I have completed with this topic, I recently visited an organization in Schaumburg, IL called FMSC (Feed My Starving Children) a local organization with seven locations, in the U.S. that provide food to children and families in need of a me...
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.