Hungry for Change

While chronic hunger is a phenomenon usually associated with the developing world, it is a problem that affects many in the United States. In fact, at some point in 2007, 691,000 children went hungry and nearly 1 in 8 Americans struggled to feed themselves. These statistics come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recently released report on food security in 2007. According to the USDA, food security measures household perceptions of whether or not they have access to enough food to meet their needs. In 2007, 11.1% of American households were food insecure and of those roughly one-third exhibited very low food security, where decreased access to food altered eating patterns and reduced overall food intake.

USDA collected the data by conducting surveys of roughly 45,600 households around the country. Survey questions included:

• “We worried whether our food would run out before we got money to buy more.” Was that often, sometimes, or never true for you in the last 12 months?

• In the last 12 months, did you lose weight because there wasn’t enough money for food?

• “We relied on only a few kinds of low-cost food to feed our children because we were running out of money to buy food.” Was that often, sometimes, or never true for you in the last 12 months?

Some of the major findings were:

• The highest rates of food insecurity were among households headed by single mothers (30.2%), black households (22.2%), Hispanic households (20.1%), and families with incomes below the poverty line (37.7%).

• Households reporting the highest rates of food insecurity were primarily located in the South and the Midwest. The average rate was highest in Mississippi (17.4%) and lowest in North Dakota (6.5%); link here.

It is likely that these numbers will increase in 2008. High unemployment rates, high commodity prices (that have been falling lately, though), and tightening credit markets have made putting food on the table a burden for many families. President-elect Obama’s pledge to expand food aid and end childhood hunger by 2015 has just become a little more difficult.