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How can hunger be reduced in the United States? In order to reduce hunger, every possible cause must be addressed. Climate changes, natural disasters, wars, and lack of aid are just a few causes of hunger and food insecurity. These issues can be dealt with nationally and locally. Nationally, there need to be programs and policies in place that give access to resources and the ability to sustain those efforts. To reduce hunger in local communities, more support needs to be given to farmers and markets, and there always needs to be access to food and aid.
There are national aid programs like SNAP, the UN World Food Programme, and Feeding America, trying to reduce hunger by providing access to food, resources, and the means to keep up those efforts. There are also councils like the UN Social and Economic Council, trying to implement policies in order to reduce and prevent food insecurity. Teaching people that having sustainable development is better than just relying on aid is also very important.
The most important food aid program in the nation is SNAP, supplemental nutritional assistance. It helped nearly 46.6 million people in 2012. It has an incredible impact on poverty in the United States. A lot of people think that because SNAP is fairly generous with the benefit it gives, that it gives some people no incentive to work. Contrary to popular belief, though, SNAP does not give enough aid for someone to live comfortably without having a job. Some people do find loopholes and ways to abuse the program, but that should not reflect on those who use it only when they actually need it. To many, SNAP is a temporary help when the income for the household is low (“HUNGER”)
The World Food Programme (WFP), established by the UN fifty y...
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... 5697-5698. JSTOR. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
“ELCA MEMBERS STRIVE TO REDUCE HUNGER IN THE UNITED STATES.” States News Service 21 Mar. 2012. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
“FOCUS, PRAGMATISM, DETERMINATION AMONG KEYS TO MEETING ‘EMINENTLY SOLVABLE’ CHALLENGE OF ENDING HUNGER JOINT MEETING TOLD.” States News Service 14 Feb. 2013. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
“HUNGER AND THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF SNAP AS PART OF THE AMERICAN SAFETY NET.” States News Service 22 Nov. 2013. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
Rossett, Peter. “Preventing hunger: change economic policy.” Nature 479.7374 (2011): 472+. Academic OneFile. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
Sheeran, Josette. “Preventing hunger: sustainability not aid.” Nature 479.7374 (2011): 469+. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
“TOP TEN FACTS ABOUT HUNGER IN THE UNITED STATES.” PR Newswire 21 Dec. 2011. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
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.
Walsh, Bryan. “America’s Food Crisis.” NEXUS. Eds. Kim and Michael Flachmann. Boston: Pearson, 2012. 166 – 173. Print.
Today SNAP is the new name of the federal Food Stamp Program. “SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The name was changed to SNAP to meet the needs of clients, which includes a focus on nutrition and an increase in the amount of benefit received” ("supplemental nutrition,"2011). Another detail about SNAP is its ability to respond to changing needs caused by economic cycles or natural emergencies on the local, state and national levels. It is second to unemployment insurance in its responsiveness to economic changes. SNAP is very helpful to low-income families’ monthly resources, increasing the chance families is able to meet basic needs.
They provide food to over 46 million people in need through their network of 200 food banks. They also work diligently on raising awareness by partnering with high-profile celebrities to create effective public service announcements. Though they are doing an amazing job tackling the hunger issue and spreading knowledge regarding hunger in America, there are two areas that may require adjustments.
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...
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...
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.
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)”.
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).
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.
The availability of food is considered to be a fundamental human right and is crucial when living a healthy life. Unfortunately, an abundance of citizens in the United States struggle with facing food insecurity. Food insecurity, to define, “occurs whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or the ability to acquire acceptable food in a socially acceptable way, is limited or uncertain” (Bazerghi et al. 732). The most common way people cannot feed themselves is due to a lack of money. The implementation of food banks has become a vital way to aid those suffering with food insecurity. For my service-learning project, I had the opportunity of volunteering at the Community Food
Barraclough, Solon L. An End to Hunger? The Social Origins of Food Strategies. London: Zed Books Ltd., 1991.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has changed over time to be more effective and efficient in aiding many U.S. Citizens in need. The current policy provisions of SNAP impact the U.S. economically and humanitarianly. Food assistance programs are relatively new in the U.S. beginning back in the late 1930’s early 1940’s. The idea was to provide assistance to the malnourished population by giving benefits to those in need. Since the 1940’s, food assistance programs have gained support and food assistance acts have been in effect to distribute aid across the U.S.
In this world there are many different types of challenges faced but individuals in different countries, as people work together to find a way to stop or solve these challenges there are also some challenges or situations that individuals, even as a group, cannot eliminate. The race to reach conclusions of situations is very desirable and is being worked on very efficiently, but one issue that people have mistaken into accomplishing is hunger. Hungry is present everywhere and not a lot of people can satisfy or fulfil that need. Lack of sanitation, unemployment, and unhealthy diet choices these are involved in an imaginary line called the poverty line. The idea of food banks is a good start into eliminating hungry but the process still has a
Danielle Knight stated that “The true source of world hunger is not scarcity but policy; not inevitability but politics, the real culprits are economies that fail to offer everyone opportunities, and societies that place economic efficiency over compassion.” The author is trying to say that, basically, world hunger is mainly caused by us humans. The world is providing more than enough food for each and every one of us on earth according to the report - 'World Hunger: Twelve Myths'. The problem is that there are so many people living in the third world countries who do not have the money to pay for readily available food. Even if their country has excess food, they still go hungry because of poverty. Since people are mistaken by “scarcity is the real cause of this problem”, governments and institutions are starting to solve food shortage problems by increasing food production, while there really is an excess of food in some countries. Although the green revolution was a big success globally, hunger still exists in some countries. The author stated, “Large farms, free-markets, free trade, and more aid from industrialized countries, have all been falsely touted as the ‘cure’ to end hunger”. All of those are used to promote exports and food production, it doesn’t increase the poor’s ability to buy food he says. What the government really should do is to balance out the economy, and let more people earn more money to buy more foods.