THE CRUX OF IT: Why do we allow any child to be hungry?
The USDA defines “food insecurity” as the lack of access, at times, to enough food for all household members.
13.1 million children lived in food-insecure households in 2015.
More than 1 in 5 children is at risk of hunger. Among African-Americans and Latinos, it’s 1 in 3.
40% of food is thrown out in the US every year, or about $165 billion worth. All of this uneaten food could feed 25 million Americans.
These 8 states have statistically higher food insecurity rates than the US national average (14.6%): Arkansas (21.2%), Mississippi (21.1%), Texas (18.0%), Tennessee (17.4%), North Carolina (17.3%), Missouri (16.9%), Georgia (16.6%), Ohio (16.0%).
(ALL BUT ONE OF THESE STATES HAS A REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR.)
1 in 7 people are enrolled in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Nearly half of them are children.
ON A GLOBAL SCALE
Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth.
Asia is the continent with the most hungry people – two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished.
66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.
Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five – 3.1 million children each year.
So these facts beg the question of why things are this way.
The answer is stated clearly in the vid below.
Problems like this can be solved easily with will and intent but it is in fact intentional to keep a subset of the population in insecurity. To do so constructs a cycle that rotates through financial insecurity to war to great profit for industry and banking to post war booms and busts. Then it is all repeated.
Where is the outrage?
To a group of people that profess profound concern for the protection and rights of children, the struggle of the under-served worldwide curiously takes a backseat to the rights of the unborn in the eyes of many conservatives.
I suppose that as long as the bellies of the lawmakers’ kids are filled with catered dinners and meals prepared by servants, the hunger of another is the product of lesser character.