Hunger is a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food. Hunger can lead to malnutrition. Lack of food in children can result in problems like headaches and obesity. Child Hunger and nutrition is important especially for children because nutrition is an essential so that they can healthy grow.
A. How many of you are worried about where your next meal will come from? Are you unsure of how you’re going to purchase next week’s groceries or what you will be feeding your children for dinner tonight? This probably isn’t something most of you think about from day to day. When you are hungry, you eat. It’s easy for you to grab a sandwich, order a pizza, or run through the drive thru when you are on the go. However, there are many families, not just in other countries, but here in the United States as well, that are going hungry every day. According to kidshealth.org, a child dies from malnutrition and related causes every 6 seconds.
In the United States many citizens face hunger, starvation and malnutrition on a daily basis. This food insecurity affects millions of Americans. Food insecurity is caused when Americans don’t have enough money to purchase food for themselves and their family. When children experience hunger if affects them both physically and psychologically. “Children who are denied an adequate diet are at a greater risk of not reaching their full potential as individuals. Undernourished youngsters have trouble concentrating and bonding with other children and are more likely to suffer illnesses resulting in school absences.” (Karger, p 371) It is important for children to meet their full potential in order for society to continue thriving into the future. If children are not receiving an adequate education because they have an empty stomach, then they will not continue to higher education or they will do poorly. In order to combat hunger in children the federal government responded with several major programs. Two of the programs the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) are targeted towards school age children. These programs provide students with breakfast and lunch while they are at school.
Fortunately there are programs that assist families in crisis and can help to feed the children of the United States; however the number of hungry children is growing. Child hunger in the United States has been described as an increasingly complex problem and has been called the “silent epidemic.” (Goldstein, 2009)
The United States faces many social problems. One of these problems is child hunger. It has sociological origins and challenges for government and citizens alike.
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.
Most people in the United States today are unaware of the increasing numbers of child hunger throughout the country. Today, a staggering one in five kids struggle with hunger in our own country (Francisco 18). Not only does it affect their concentration and grades in school, but also their overall health. Over 1.02 billion people in the world are considered to be malnourished, and hunger and malnutrition is the leading cause of child deaths, which accounts for 6 million children each year (Nah and Chau). When most people think of children and families going hungry, they think that it is just a problem in other countries. However, there is an increasing amount of children and their families in North Carolina
You may think child hunger is only in a certain area or somewhere where it's really poor, but in reality the U.S has some crisis to and child hunger is one of them. Solving child hunger is not an easy thing to accomplish in solving, but in the U.S we can make a change by donating to food programs. Donating to food programs is not the only choice you can join the fight against child hunger, pack groceries, serve a meal, change a life by giving and pledge to volunteer. By helping and donating you just not only help provide plenty of meals for children around the U.S so that no child goes hungry, but change their lives and make them have a food-secure household. These are many ways people around the U.S are solving the problem to stop child hunger
“The agriculture Department estimated in 1999 that twelve million children were hungry or at risk of going hungry.” She proclaimed. The cause of that could be because parents who can’t afford or find service programs to park their vacationing children in front of the television, lock the door, and go to work hoping for
Hunger in America happens every year to homeless people,kids, and adults,as sad as it is even new born babies. This could happen to anyone why? There is several reasons maybe some people don’t have the money. What if you were that person how would you live knowing that your child isn’t getting proper nutrition? Many people don’t seem to realize how much this really happens. one in 7 people in the United States face trying and struggling to get food to eat, and more than 12 million American family’s face hunger. Food insecurity is harmful to all people, but it is especially devastating to children. Proper nutrition is what a child’s needs to help with their development or you can say growing. Did you know that while hunger is nonstop - African
A balanced nutrition for the first 3 years of a child’s life is extremely important to stabilize their mental and physical health in the future. Starvation is a common problem with poor families. It currently affects 49.1 million families in the United States. Undernutrition is the start to many diseases such as measles and malaria. If the children get these diseases, it is very likely that they don’t have health insurance to cover their illnesses and injuries. 15.8 million children have families who are not consistently stable to feed them. Food pantries are crowded and jam packed with people, that they don’t have enough food for all. The majority of canned foods and other donations are donated during Christmas or Thanksgiving when the food pantries need it the most. Nobody realizes that they need food all throughout the year. Food is the main component to fuel the body to grow and move. Poverty doesn’t just hurt a child physically through starvation, moreover mentally through learning
everyday, you are probably wondering why nationwide hunger is an issue. Families that are subject to poverty generally have little money, goods, and don’t often have much support. Economic income does determine if a child is more likely to go hungry or not. Right here in the Central Valley and Imperial County have the highest percentage of child hunger. Due to high unemployment rates, people are having harder times to feed their families. Because of this Feeding America discovered that these families are forced to make the choice between feeding their household or paying bills and rent to provide a roof and warm bed. Even with organizations such as Hungry Harvest, Feed the Children, Meals on Wheels, Feeding America and No Kid Hungry, studies continue to show that nationwide hunger is still a serious issue in the United States. In order to solve this problem more people need to be made aware of how important it is to help those that don’t have the same luxuries and to create new organizations and programs that lower income families can benefit
Many problems plague the United States as a country that spans a vast swath of land, contains many over exploited natural resources, and houses 320 million people that come from all stretches of the globe, but one of the single biggest problems is hunger. Child hunger in the United States is at the forefront of this issue. The helpless youth of today quite often become the hopeless adults of tomorrow when their basic needs are not met. This country has enough food to provide its citizens with all of their nutritional needs, but just like so many other expansive problems, distribution is the crux of the matter. With children as the focus, we must hone in on a means to bring the food and children together on a consistent basis. Education in this
Anna Quindlen wrote this essay to persuade Americans to help stop the problem of child hunger. In the text Anna Quindlen says, “we Americans like need that takes place far from home, so we can feel simultaneously self-congratulatory and safe from the possibility that times could be lurking around the corner.” By this quote she means you’ll never know when your going to wake up & go through a struggle of surviving. You’d rather be safe than sorry because problems occur at any moment. She also states that, “the Agriculture Department estimated in 1999 that twelve-million children were hungry or at risk of going hungry.” Since then, there’s been more children in the U.S. that’s going through the same thing. Over the years the stats of child hunger are going up. More & more kids go hungry daily. However, she wants to have people help change
Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity. What do all of these have in common? They can all be a result of poor nutrition in one’s diet (“The Risks of Poor Nutrition”). In efforts to improve the overall health and wellness of children in America, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was implemented during the Obama administration. This act directly altered the nutritional standards and quality of the food that is served in public schools (Vilsack). The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is beneficial to students’ health because it provides the necessary nutrients needed to live healthy lifestyles.