...Food insecurity- (not knowing when or how the next meal will be obtained) is only one facet in the operation a Food Pantry which distributes food to various groups of people of a community. A food pantry or commonly known as a food closet, food shelves or local food bank are non-profit organizations that provide assistance to communities in need. Their main focus is to assist people of various groups to maintain a healthy life. You will be surprised to see the groups within the community affected by food insecurity. Food insecurity, defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is a limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways. Children are the number one victims of food insecurity because their family has to make the hard decisions whether to pay bills or to feed their child in a manner that is healthy. On a national average, 15.9 million children suffer from food insecurity. Food insecurity in children can hinder not only their physical health but their state of mind as well. Most children in a food insecurity environment might have a difficult experience in the performance of normal learning objectives in school. Low income families make up a very small percentage of food insecurity’s total population because most low income family has at least one working adult. Most people believe that people living in poverty, the homeless,...
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...Child Hunger in America Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation A) Write a rationale for the presentation in which you do the following: Hunger is a discomfort that emerges as a result of lack of food accompanied by the desire to eat. In the United States, hunger does not take the extreme form as it is experienced in some third world countries. Instances of severe food deprivation are rare in the United States. Clinical symptoms of food deprivation are sometimes used to determine if children in a country are faced by hunger. Such symptoms include low weight in relation to body height, low height for age and wasting. Such symptoms characterize children who are starved although in the USA they are rare and when they occur they are limited. The impact of hunger as seen in the United States is usually difficult to be measured. The impacts include; tiredness, irritability, frequent headaches, frequent colds and infections. The clinical objective of measuring hunger is very difficult hence alternative methods have been deployed in both the private and public sector. The alternative measures of measuring hunger are using a person’s self-report of his/her psychological or subjective experience of hunger. Researchers may not agree on any particular definition of hunger. But for the purpose of policy making and measurement hunger is defined as taking in inadequate amount of food resulting from lack of money and resources. It can also be defined as the mental or physical condition...
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...Child Hunger: Starving the Future Prove it Exists Jahzaire Sutton, a 12-year-old boy from New York who has experienced the effects of hunger first-hand, recently appeared alongside educational reformists and celebrities on Education Nation to tell his story. Poverty hit the Sutton family so harshly, that often Jahzaire was forced to go to school hungry. “I wasn’t able to focus on my schoolwork and that kind of affected my report card grades…it was very frustrating, because it’s all I could think of, food, when I went to school,” recounted Jahzaire (Strauss). Jahzaire is but one of many children who wind up going to school hungry, and it is negatively impacting their chances of success both in the classroom, and in the real world. In schools,...
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...Food insecurity is not a new issue that has been plaguing us for years now, and we have yet to make a complete solution. It has been causing families, adults, and children to go without food for countless days and nights. This is an obvious problem because without the proper amount of nutrition, it’s hard to go about life living healthy and well, especially for children. This major issue has various opinions on what the main source of this problem is, such as parents not feeding their children right, the school not giving the right food to children, and even the children not eating the food they should be, but we believe the economy and government is the most at fault. A lot of the food the children are getting is either not substantial for...
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...There are some terrific organizations out there that continuously raise awareness of the growing problem of hunger in the world. The problem is there are too many people and families who don’t make enough money to support their family and who struggle to even put food on the table. Poverty and hunger seem to be one in the same in America. But, according to FeedAmerica.org, poverty is not the only factor of food insecurity. Even people considered above the poverty line are at risk of hunger also. Research shows that unemployment is a bigger result of food insecurity as opposed to poverty among Americans. So, how should we address the issue of hunger and food insecurity? The first step is creating aware of this epic problem our society...
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...according to the UN's Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN). Malnutrition is a global problem that affects not only developing countries but developed ones as well. In the United States alone, the annual cost for illnesses linked to hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity is $130.5 billion with only $17.8 billion of charitable contributions devoted to addressing these issues. Often thought of as undernourishment in the sense of not getting enough food, malnutrition is the lack of proper nutrients in a person’s diet that contributes to health problems. This means that individuals can be getting enough to eat but are not consuming the daily requirements of calories, protein or micronutrients. ● The global food system is broken. In total around 3.5 billion people — half the people on the planet today — are malnourished ● 2.3 million children die every year due to malnutrition ● Largest single contributor to disease in the world, according to the UN's Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) ● Iodine deficiency is the world's greatest single cause of mental retardation and brain damage ● Countries lose 23% of their GDP as a result of malnutrition Why choose this problem? The annual cost of malnutrition or its threat to US(i.e. “food insecurity) includes: ● $130.5 billion: Illness costs linked to hunger,malnutrition and...
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...A Quiet and Dangerous Threat: Addressing Hunger in the United States Through Policy Alternatives When someone asks you the question “What public problems persist in the United States today?” you probably would think of crime rates, homelessness, or illegal immigration. But there is one that many people fail to remember because for a majority, it does not affect them. However, for others, it's the very struggle they face everyday. This public problem is hunger, a situation that has continually been very apparent around the world and more specifically in the United States. According to research from the national food bank organization “Feeding America,” one in six Americans face hunger each day. With this statistic there is also data collected in 2014 in which states that forty-eight million Americans are facing hunger and “food insecurity,” or the lack of access at times to provide food to all members of the family. While we recognize that the United States holds a vast majority of millions of people, the problem is not so much in the lack of food, but rather due to the presence of poverty. After the 2008 recession, more than fifteen percent of the United States population lives in poverty and as a result, struggle to provide the necessary supplements, costs and expenses. These are serious numbers and hunger has put many lives at stake. We as humanity understand the importance and simply the need for food, as it is what allows us to survive, grow, and work efficiently in our...
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...healthy food, quality health care, financial education, and a supportive educational system enables all Passaic County residents of all ages (children, teenagers, adults and seniors) to thrive, and lead healthy lifestyles. United way of Passaic County understands the socioeconomic and community-level factors that contribute to health outcomes. Our work is helping to create healthier communities as well as motivating individuals in our community to take steps to a healthier life. Inspiring the community to engage, mobilize and volunteer around health issues, we're working to improve nutrition and support healthy lifestyles for youth and adults. Learn About the Issue • 18% of low-income preschool children (ages 2 – 5 years) in New Jersey are obese. • Across the state, 15.4% of children (ages 10 – 17) are obese and only 29.1% of children (ages 6 -17) participate in vigorous physical activity every day. • Almost 30% of New Jerseyans report no leisure-time physical activity or consumption of fruits and vegetables. • The leading causes of ill-health in Passaic County are diet-related chronic illnesses such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. • The cost of food locally, in particular for fresh vegetables and fruits, has increased by almost increased 5% since 2010 – making purchasing nutritious food even more difficult. • Recent estimates note that ~6% of Passaic County residents experience some level of food insecurity. •...
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...Is the Food Stamp Program a Substantial Contribution to Childhood Obesity? Is the Food Stamp Program a Substantial Contribution to Childhood Obesity? Introduction Is the rising rate of childhood obesity within the United States affected by the food stamp program? This is the question that formulated the basis of my research. Looking at the rising statistics of obesity rates within America’s youth and researching why the weight of the United States community is significantly passing those of its surrounding countries. In researching this topic I hope to determine if the food stamp program is in any way responsible for this increasing health issue. As the years progress the health of today’s youth is rapidly decreasing. Although the lacks of exercise and poor food influences serve as a high influence on this issue, researching this topic has shown that the food stamp program has helped contribute to the issue at hand. Presenting Argument and Supportive Research To be classified as an overweight child, the body mass index is in the 85th percentile and the ratio of weight to height is unhealthy (Baun, 2011 p. 623). This number has increased drastically among America’s youth over the past decade. As obesity increases among youth, there is a decrease in physical activity as well as healthy eating habits. Healthy eating choices are the focus of my research, as I concentrate on the eating habits of children participating in America’s Food stamp Program. The heaviest children...
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...Of the 73 million children living in the United States, over 32 million are in households considered low-income or below the federal poverty level (“Child Poverty,” 2017). While elementary and secondary public school education are available to all residents under age 18, students from low socioeconomic status (SES) households (under 200 percent of the federal poverty level) have an academic disadvantage when compared to non-poor peers (income over 200 percent of FPL). As the “lottery of birth” of growing up with or without financial stability determines a child’s overall standard of living, it thus also determines the quality of their education (Kristof, 2014). This paper will outline three areas of inequality between low SES and non-poor public...
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...Extreme Poverty and Hunger- “The Silent Killers”: How the World Bank plans to eradicate them by 2015 Extreme poverty and food insecurity are some of the major global issues many countries worldwide have to face. Poverty leads to heavily indebted governments, hunger, poor education and lack of adequate medical care for the people. Although poverty “is a state for the majority of the world’s people and nations (Shah, “Causes of Poverty”)”, there is hope that “the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization (Shah, “Causes of Poverty”)” will enforce successfully global policies and practices fighting the cruel reality which over 3 billion people have to try to survive in on less than $2.50 a day (Shah, “Causes of Poverty”). Depending on how a culture views the issue with poverty, the mechanisms against it are enforced accordingly. In the middle Ages, it was considered a virtue and a way for “the chosen ones” to display their good Christian values by feeding the hungry and giving clothes to the ones who do not have any. In addition, the misery which poverty brought to the people was not considered a problem but a widely accepted path towards one’s soul salvation. In Latin America poverty used to be accepted as destiny, a family’s inheritance passed on from generation to generation. Nobody can run away from it even if one improves their financial situation because there will always be somebody to make a comment such as:” I remember whenever you were poor and had nothing”...
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...I want to broach the matter of food insecurity that Canadians face as a result of poverty. Food is one of the basic human rights referenced in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948, it states that “The right to food is the right of every individual, alone or in community with others, to have physical and economic access at all times to sufficient, adequate and culturally acceptable food produced and consumed sustainably, preserving access to food for future generations.” Over 50 years later, however, and hunger remains a prevalent issue throughout many first world countries, including...
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...dependence on Food stamps and other government resources to help make ends meet. Unfortunately, that is not always enough. The fight against hunger is not just about being hungry. Lack of proper nutrition is a hindrance to our children. Our children growing up hungry can potentially affect their overall health, education, and adult economic stability. The direct economic impact of hunger and food insecurity in America resulted in Federal expenditures for food assistance programs totaling approximately $103.3 billion in fiscal year 2011. This was an 8 percent increase from the year before. This was also the eleventh consecutive year that food assistance expenses increased and the fifth where they exceeded previous historical record. (Oliveira, 2012) The following graph shows the drastic monetary increase in billions for the SNAP or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from 1970 to 2011. The indirect economic impact of hunger and food insecurity in America is shown in many different ways. One very important example is the rising costs of special education. Food insecurity has been shown to have a direct impact on a child’s physical and mental development, school readiness, and academic performance. In 2006 the federal funds for Special Education were $11.46 billion and part of that was directly linked to food insecurity and hunger. (Cook, 2009) In 1989 the Life Sciences Research Office founded the basis for standardized definitions used in estimating food security in...
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...Hunger, a term used to describe extreme and painful cravings for food (2011 World Hunger, 2011). World hunger is still in an issue in the 21st century, extreme malnutrition largely exists within developing countries (FAO, 2010). FAO, The Food and Agriculture Organization, claims that world hunger has risen to 925 million (13.6% of world population) in 2010, this is caused by factors such as increased food prices and a worldwide economic crisis (FAO, 2010). Poverty is a chronic issue in under developed countries, many people could only afford little food but with the inflation of food prices, the hungry are getting hungrier (Estimating the Short, 2011). Many businesses in Africa are losing profit because the consumers cannot afford the products. The price of goods is rising due to expensive oil, lack of crops and climate change. Due to inflation of food prices, hunger is an increasing issue in under developed countries. “Figure 1.0: Different poverty levels (Global Issues, 2010) “Figure 1.0: Different poverty levels (Global Issues, 2010) Food price inflation has recently been a serious issue around the world. Many are feeling the impact, but those in poorer countries are getting hit the hardest (Estimating the Short, 2011).Within developing countries there is poverty and scarce resources. This is caused by such factors as bad government, low education and lack of health care (Global Issues, 2010).Poverty is a large issue within developing countries; many individuals can barely...
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...The Foodbank, Regional Leader in Local Support November 10, 2012 The Foodbank, Inc. is a regional food support program that provides assistance to residents of Montgomery, Greene, and Preble counties located in southwestern Ohio. There are nearly one hundred local member programs that rely on The Foodbank for a continuing supply of nutritious food. The Foodbank provides much needed nutrition through generous donations of time and money, and continuing support from government grants and local tax levies. The challenges presented to The Foodbank are heightened by the economic profile of the counties it serves. According to the United States Census Bureau, 13.8% of the United States population lives beneath the poverty level, while 14.4% the combined population of Montgomery, Greene, and Preble counties lives beneath the poverty level (United States Census Bureau, 2012). The people served by The Foodbank are largely in poverty, with 83% of those served in 2011 falling below the poverty level with an average monthly income of $760.00 (The Foodbank, Inc., 2012). A hunger study performed by The Foodbank between February and June of 2007 found the following: The Foodbank provides emergency food for an estimated 70,000 different people annually. 40% of the members of households served by The Foodbank are children under 18 years old. 23% of households include at least one employed adult. 79% have incomes below the federal poverty level. (The Foodbank, Inc., 2012) The...
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