World Hunger - United States
- Sep 1, 2006 - comment
Did You Know
- One in four people in a soup kitchen line is a child.
- 30% of the families surveyed were forced to choose between buying food and paying for medical care or medicine.
- Nearly 15% of the total households served by the America’s Second Harvest Network reside in rural areas.
- Four million non-elderly low-income families said they had used a food pantry at least once during the past year.
“Did You Know,” http://www.secondharvest.org/ (America’s Second Harvest) [Accessed March 7, 2006]
“America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network is the largest charitable domestic hunger-relief organization in the country with a Network of more than 200 Member food banks and food-rescue programs serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The America’s Second Harvest Network secures and distributes more than 2 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually; and supports approximately 50,000 local charitable agencies operating more than 94,000 programs including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs, and Kids Cafes. Last year, the America’s Second Harvest Network provided food assistance to more than 25 million low-income hungry people in the United States, including nearly 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors.”
Excerpted from Wal-mart and Sam’s Club Announce $10 Million Partnership with America’s Second Harvest to Help End Hunger (America’s Second Harvest), March 2, 2006
“It is ironic that, even though more Americans than ever are overweight and suffer from obesity-related illness, hunger is on the rise. A new study shows that more than 25 million Americans last year relied on help from the country’s most extensive networks of food banks to stave off the pangs of recurrent hunger.
“According to America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network, a large portion of people in need of food assistance are not unemployed, the group that might come to mind in a discussion of hunger. In fact, almost 40 percent of food bank clients have at least one working adult in the household. However, most of their incomes put them below the federal poverty line, which is all of $15,067 for a family of three.
“So how is it that Americans can be getting fatter and fatter, and still more are going hungry? Actually, it’s a scenario that is not at all absurd, says Houston Food Bank President and CEO Brian Greene.
“‘Obesity is everyday,’ Greene explains. ‘Hunger is episodic.’
“Unfortunately, the sort of inexpensive food that is affordable to the poor—including fast foods and inexpensive, highly processed store-bought fare—provides a high-calorie, low-nutrient diet. It makes poor people fat and unhealthy. But, as the Second Harvest study shows, carrying excess body fat can’t stave off the pains of regularly not having enough food to eat.
“The 25.3 million Americans that Second Harvest’s Hunger in America study found had frequented a food bank last year included some 9 million children and 3 million seniors. The total represents an 8 percent increase since 2001.”
Excerpted from, “Slim Pickings; Houston Is One of the Fattest Cities in America, but, Sadly, It Is Also One of the Hungriest,” The Houston Chronicle, March 6, 2006
According to a recent study in Arkansas, an estimated 291,500 people depend on the state’s six food banks for their needs. For example:
- Food banks provided food to 116,600 children under the age of 18.
- 23,320 of the children served were under age 5.
- More than half receiving aid were white.
- 40 percent (116,600) were African American.
- 12,000 were Hispanic.
- At least one adult in the family was employed in more than one-third of the households where assistance was received.
- Nearly three-fourths of those receiving aid had incomes below the official federal poverty level.
- 17,490 were homeless.
Brandon Tubbs, “Food Banks Vital for 291,500 in State, Hunger Survey Shows,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock), February 24, 2006
A study conducted in 2005 for America’s Second Harvest Network (A2H) was based on completed in-person interviews with more than 52,000 clients served by the A2H Network, as well as on completed questionnaires from more than 30,000 A2H agencies.
Some of the study’s key findings are:
- 36% of the members of households served by the A2H National Network are children under 18 years old.
- 8% of the members of households are children age 0 to 5 years.
- 10% of the members of households are elderly.
- About 40% of clients are non-Hispanic white; 38% are non-Hispanic black, and the rest are from other racial groups. 17% are Hispanic.
- 36% of households include at least one employed adult.
- 68% have incomes below the official federal poverty level during the previous month.
- 5% are receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and 7% are receiving General Assistance.
- 12% are homeless.
- 42% of clients served by the A2H National Network report having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel.
- 35% had to choose between paying for food and paying their rent or mortgage.
- 32% had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care.
Excerpted from “Hunger in America 2006—Key Findings,” http://www.hungerinamerica.org/key_findings/ (America’s Second Harvest) [Accessed March 30, 2006]
A joint study by the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University and the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) found several significant results of childhood hunger:
- Hungry children suffer from two to four times as many individual health problems as low-income children who do not experience food shortages. Hungry children are more likely to experience unwanted weight loss, fatigue, headaches, irritability, the inability to concentrate, and frequent colds.
- Hungry children are more likely to experience illness, causing them to miss school.
- Hungry children often experience stunting (low height for their age.
- Hungry children often experience iron-deficiency anemia, resulting in developmental and behavioral disturbances.
- Hungry children are less likely to interact with others or explore their surroundings.
- Hungry children who are school-age cannot concentrate or do as well on the tasks they need to perform to learn the basics in education.
- Hungry children are impacted emotionally—exhibiting anxiety, negative feelings about their self-worth, and hostility towards the outside world.
Adapted from Health Consequences of Hunger (Food Research and Action Center) [Accessed March 30, 2006]
Further Learning
Learn more about: Citizenship, Hunger/Homelessness