Monday, March 29, 2010

1 in 4 American Children Don’t Have Enough to Eat

You don’t have to go far to find third world problems, right here in the USA. Free-lance writer Annemarie Mannion gives an excellent overview of hunger among children in this country in the current issue of The Rotarian monthly magazine. HUNGER

She reviews statistics documenting that 1 in every 4 children in this country (nearly 50 million) currently suffer from food insecurity as surveyed by the USDA. And 1/3rd of those or nearly 7 million have “very low” food security.

Very low food security is characterized by size of or skipping meals, being worried that food will run out, not eating when hungry and going entire days without eating etc

I can imagine people, many of whom were probably tail-gating in Searchlight NV this weekend, who will blow that off but it doesn’t matter who is at fault, we’re all paying the price.

Hungry kids aren’t always skinny. Some are obese because hungry kids often hoard, gorge or hide food. They have higher rates of emergency room visits (yes, we already pay for that) and higher rates of hospitalization and other negative health outcomes.

And the list goes on…just because you personally may have plenty to eat or think your kids or grandchildren are not at risk to be among the 49% of all children in households that will use food stamps by the time they are 20…doesn’t mean this problem won’t impact you…we pay now to fix it or we pay later in ways too numerous to list here.

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