...The one-in-five childhood hunger figure should raise red flags for three reasons.
First, studies of poor households show that almost half own their own homes, three quarters own a car, and almost all have a color television. The American poor seem to have money for things other than food for their children, if the one-in-five statistic is to be believed.
Second, advocacy groups (with Michelle Obama as a leading spokesperson) now appear to have decided that the problem is childhood obesity, not hunger. The children, especially of the poor, are not going to bed hungry. They are eating too much of the wrong foods.
Third, if the one-in-five statistic is correct, the public food stamps and school free lunch programs must be colossal failures. Despite their wide reach into poor communities, they apparently leave more than thirty percent of school children “struggling with hunger.”
Where does the one-in-five figure come from and what does it really measure?
It turns out that the official arbiter of family nutrition is the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Its annual survey classifies families as “food secure”, “food insecure”, and “very low food secure.” It publishes no direct measure of “hunger,” only of what it calls “food security.” The details of the survey are found in the statistical appendix to the annual survey – a document that few read.
The USDA classifies households as “food insecure” if they report worrying about not having enough money to buy food, if they substitute cheaper foods, skip meals, or eat less for financial reasons. If they do these things frequently, they are classified as “very low food secure.”
Slightly over 21 percent of households are “food insecure.” This is the one-in-five statistic we hear from the media and advocacy groups.
The one-in-five figure is for all households, many of which consist only of adults. If we limit the sample to households with children, ten percent of them are classified as food insecure. If any group wishes to use the broadest possible measure of children’s “struggle for food,” the ten percent figure would be it.
Notably, weekly spending on food by the median “food insecure” household is 95 percent of the cost of the USDA Thrifty Food Plan – the minimum cost of an affordable and healthy diet. It seems that another five cents on the dollar separates 16.2 million hungry children from a healthy diet.
Not publicized by the childhood hunger lobby are the USDA’s most direct measures of childhood hunger. They reveal that between one and two percent of families “cut the size of children's meals” or report that “children were hungry” or “skipped meals.” And only one tenth of one percent of families reported that “children did not eat for a whole day.” These findings do not suggest, to say the least, an epidemic of childhood hunger. The USDA’s most direct measures yield a childhood hunger rate between one and two in a hundred, not one in five.
Are One In Five American Children Hungry?
First, studies of poor households show that almost half own their own homes, three quarters own a car, and almost all have a color television. The American poor seem to have money for things other than food for their children, if the one-in-five statistic is to be believed.
Second, advocacy groups (with Michelle Obama as a leading spokesperson) now appear to have decided that the problem is childhood obesity, not hunger. The children, especially of the poor, are not going to bed hungry. They are eating too much of the wrong foods.
Third, if the one-in-five statistic is correct, the public food stamps and school free lunch programs must be colossal failures. Despite their wide reach into poor communities, they apparently leave more than thirty percent of school children “struggling with hunger.”
Where does the one-in-five figure come from and what does it really measure?
It turns out that the official arbiter of family nutrition is the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Its annual survey classifies families as “food secure”, “food insecure”, and “very low food secure.” It publishes no direct measure of “hunger,” only of what it calls “food security.” The details of the survey are found in the statistical appendix to the annual survey – a document that few read.
The USDA classifies households as “food insecure” if they report worrying about not having enough money to buy food, if they substitute cheaper foods, skip meals, or eat less for financial reasons. If they do these things frequently, they are classified as “very low food secure.”
Slightly over 21 percent of households are “food insecure.” This is the one-in-five statistic we hear from the media and advocacy groups.
The one-in-five figure is for all households, many of which consist only of adults. If we limit the sample to households with children, ten percent of them are classified as food insecure. If any group wishes to use the broadest possible measure of children’s “struggle for food,” the ten percent figure would be it.
Notably, weekly spending on food by the median “food insecure” household is 95 percent of the cost of the USDA Thrifty Food Plan – the minimum cost of an affordable and healthy diet. It seems that another five cents on the dollar separates 16.2 million hungry children from a healthy diet.
Not publicized by the childhood hunger lobby are the USDA’s most direct measures of childhood hunger. They reveal that between one and two percent of families “cut the size of children's meals” or report that “children were hungry” or “skipped meals.” And only one tenth of one percent of families reported that “children did not eat for a whole day.” These findings do not suggest, to say the least, an epidemic of childhood hunger. The USDA’s most direct measures yield a childhood hunger rate between one and two in a hundred, not one in five.
Are One In Five American Children Hungry?
