Deborah Frank Analysis

How a national food policy could save millions of American lives discusses the lack of a national food policy in America and how the food industry affects people and the world. Examples of issues that a nation food policy could alleviate include Americans access to healthy food and reducing the carbon footprint from food production. The article also discusses how special interests flourish from issues related to the food industry while citizens and the environment suffer.

The first two articles discuss the hunger-obesity paradox by using statistics, which quantifies the severity of increasing obesity rates. By doing so, the authors of the first articles identify the problem and conclude that the ineffectiveness of federal food assistance and overpriced foods lead to hunger, in which people then rely on cheaper and easier to access, calorie dense foods, and ultimately results in the increase of obesity rates among low-income populations. Since the first two articles only merely hint at the social justice issues of this academic discourse, the authors of the remaining three articles provide an in-depth discussion on the social injustices behind food deserts and re-introduce the necessary emotion and passion that hopefully moves readers to not let it become stagnant. In fact, their use of pathos intensifies the academic conversation by driving readers to understand the existing implications of the prevailing issue and of the possible implications if allowed to continue. In general, the different perspectives and contributions from all the authors, in regards to the hunger-obesity paradox, gives a small insight into the larger, more complex issue and how a comprehensive discourse is critical when attempting to arise to

After reading the extensive “The New Face of Hunger” (Tracie McMillan), my eyes became more open to the overall issue of hunger, faced by many people today. In a few words, I was absolutely shocked by the true meaning and examples provided of what exactly food insecurity is. Honestly speaking, when I hear the word “hunger” I think of a human who has no food, living on the streets. “The New Face of hunger” brought to my attention that food insecurity is much more than simply having no food. In fact, “In 2006 the U.S. government replaced “hunger” with the term “food insecure” to describe any household where, sometime during the previous year, people didn’t have enough food to eat” (The New Face of Hunger). Not only was I able to see the harsh

Events such as the Poor People’s March in Washington D.C., the airing of “Hunger in America” on CBS, and the National Nutrition Survey of 1967 all brought widespread attention to the issue of poverty, hungry, poor nutrition trends, and lack of healthy food resources for pregnant women, mothers, infants, and children in low income households and communities through heavy media coverage in the 1960s. With these issues heavily publicized by media outlets around the country, citizens now had a bird’s eye view of impoverished women and children with scarce options to effectively alleviate hunger in their households on a consistent basis, let alone have consistent access to healthy foods. Society often

In Lisa Miller’s essay “Divided We eat,” she describes her usual morning breakfast that consists of fancy foods and claims that she is a food snob. She then goes into detail about what her neighbor's routine is like, and what Alexandra Ferguson’s morning routine is like. Food is typically a big issue for these families and the parents will usually spend hours thinking about how they will feed their families. Miller and Ferguson later discuss that some children don’t get enough eat, and some of these children are within five miles of them. Miller then tells us that seventeen percent of Americans are food insecure. The income gap has increased and now more Americans are becoming obese because of this.

It was difficult to read that countless millions of federal dollars and many of our country's most successful efforts to halt the spread of childhood hunger and starvation have recently been withdrawn. And as a result, this problem of childhood hunger is not getting better but is actually getting worse. The most recent estimates compiled by the USDA in 1999 indicate that 36.2 million Americans live in food-insecure households, which means that their access to adequate and safe food is limited or uncertain. This too is very disturbing information.

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.

Research shows that government-sponsored programs aiming to expand access to healthy food options and reduce levels of obesity are ineffective. These policies emphasize accessibility in terms of location and proximity but fail to encourage consumption of healthy foods or reduce levels of obesity among low-income families (Copari, 2014). The analysis through policy lens illustrates the government's role and the inability to address the underlying causes of food deserts that result in the policies that disregard equity and focus on promoting equality. In this section, we discuss the government’s efforts to increase accessibility to healthy food options, the political implications of food desert policies, and the government’s efficacy to promote

In the article “The Insanity of Our Food Policy” (2013), the author Joseph claims that the food policy of U.S. has long been with illogic, because of Congress attempts to pass a long-stalled extension of the farm bill, would cut back the pitiful support from U.S. citizens who in the lowest level of the people and use this money to continue subsidize a small number of wealthy American farmers. Furthermore, Joseph states that small numbers of Americans have grown extremely wealthy, and they get disproportionate size political power. In addition, the author points out American farmers are the most efficient in the world, but there are still millions of Americans suffer from hunger. At the end of the article, Joseph emphasizes Republicans’ food

On some cases, the reasons range from, “They don’t need it; they can do it themselves” to “I don’t see any starving children.” However, charitable services and food programs are already struggling to serve eligible families (1). With the high percentage of hunger rates and little support, food programs generally run out of food and supplies before they can serve all of those who need it. Furthermore, signs of malnutrition are not always evident. While the most obvious sign of hunger is little to no fat in bones, families that are obese could also be living with insufficient meals. Because poor families are limited to their food choice, they choose high fat foods since they are much more affordable and long lasting than fresher and healthier options (7). Denial of food hunger in Solano County prevents people from getting the help they need, and makes the situation even

It is also clear that there is evidence that shows a great need in improving people of low-socioeconomic status health because the government has been making efforts. However, what have not been addressed are the barriers that people in low-income communities still face even with government resources. Furthermore, it is also clear that the government saw the importance of making sure that low income families had access to health care when they created Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. While access to health care is also a very important piece to a healthy lifestyle, it also becomes counterproductive when people still continue to have a poor diet and end up having to seek medical help at some point. Giving people the chance to have a better nutrition would also help decrease the number of doctor visits for those who do seek medical attention, and for those who don’t seek medical attention it would at least keep them

Food policy is an area of public policy concerning how food is produced, processed, distributed, and purchased. Food policies are designed for influencing the operation of food and agriculture systems. Policies often include decisions on production and processing techniques, the marketing of food, labeling of food products, availability, and the consumption of food. Food policy can impact all populations on many levels from local to global, especially the lower socio economic level individuals and families. This issue is critical to address now because our nation is focused on caring for those who are already sick instead of illness prevention. This paper will address the various organizations that influence our nation’s food policy and

A man named Norman Borlaug or more commonly known as the Father of the Green Revolution stated that “the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.” The scarcity of food in low-income and impoverished populations have led to the theory that the relative absence of access to full-service supermarkets and the easier access to fast and convenience foods may be linked to less stellar eating habits and the increase of first world problems such as obesity and other diet-related health issues (USDA, 2009). As a consequence federal, state, and local governments are faced with supporting costly environmental and social justice movements.

The United States prides itself on its freedoms and the many rights it guarantees to its citizens. A person has the right to religious freedom, to a trial by jury, to free speech, to free expression – but what about the right to healthful food? At this point, no right in the United States explicitly guarantees citizens access to nutritious, affordable food. A possible reason for this is that guaranteeing equal access to food across the nation is a daunting task. How does one even begin to accomplish such a goal? But despite its difficulty, this is an end to which the nation must work. It is too important an opportunity to miss because of indolence. Access to healthful, affordable food should be a right of citizenship in the United States because the nation recognizes such access as a basic human right and because such access is arguably a more important right than many that we currently enjoy. While practically, realizing this goal will be a challenge, the United States can do so by simply protecting other human rights, such as the

Donaldson’s findings are evidence to the importance of evaluating and setting the policy agenda with respect to all of the objectives outlined in food policy rather than just focusing on a single aspect, in this case poverty reduction, can hamstring the policy. Ignoring the interdependence of the objectives will ultimately cripple developmental policy as the externalities of narrow-minded policy create a negative feedback loop and thus kicks the developmental can down the road rather than dealing with the root of the