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Chantell Simpson
ENG 1201
Prof. Cassel
6 December 2016
Hungry Children
More programs should come together to help homes that are food insecure because if children are
not getting the proper nutrients in their diet, then kids are being affected mentally and physically. We
cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs (Bill Clinton). Our children of today
are going to be the generation that will do great for our world when we get older and retire. When I was
a child, the elderly depended on us when we got older because every generation as they get older they
get the chance to operate the things that make living better. If so many children are being affected by not
getting the proper nutrition, then what might happen to those children?
Children growing up in food insecure families are vulnerable to poor health and stunted
development from the earliest stages of life. Food is very important. Not only do we love it because most
food taste good, but our body craves those nutrients. When you put good in you get good out. When you
starve your body of those nutrients, your body doesn't function as well as it should. "Food security is
informally access by all people at all times who have enough to buy food for an active, healthy life.
Food insecurity refers to limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or
limited or uncertain ability to acquire food in socially acceptable ways"(Cook). Until the mid-1990s,
lack of access to adequate food by U.S. households due to constrained household financial resources had
been measured by questions assessing "hunger," "risk of hunger," and "food insufficiency." Hungry
children ages 0-3 years cannot learn as fast or as well, because chronic under-nutrition harms their

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cognitive development during this critical period of rapid brain growth, which can potentially change the
fundamental neurological architecture of the brain and central nervous system. Children seem to do
more poorly in school and are not well prepared for school.
In 2006, 12.4 million children were food-insecure. In 2007, the official poverty threshold for a
family of 4 with 2 children was $21,027 per year. In 2007, 13.3 million children lived in poverty. When
you think of people who are food insecure you automatically think of people who don't make much
money. That's not the case. Not all poor people are food insecure and the risk of food insecurity extends
to people living above the federal poverty level. Of the 36.2 million food-insecure people in the U.S. in
2007, 12.4 million were children under 18 years of age. As with poverty, subpopulations with the highest
prevalence of household food insecurity are Blacks (22.0%), Latinos (22.3%), and people in households
with children under 6 years of age (17.7%), and single mother households (30.4%).
"So the sobering message here is that if children don't have the right experiences
during these sensitive periods for the development of a variety of skills, including
many cognitive and language capacities, that's a burden that those kids are going
to carry; the sensitive period is over, and it's going to be harder for them. Their
architecture is not as well developed in their brain as it would have been if they
had the right experiences during the sensitive period. (Jack P. Shonkoff)
Children's school readiness is built on growth, development, and experiences during the first
three years of life. Success in kindergarten builds on readiness achieved in years 0-3; success in grade
school builds on growth, development and learning in pre-school and kindergarten. Some of the factors
influencing child health can both impair human capital formation which is experience possessed by an
individual or population and diminish human capital already formed. Some examples of liabilities to
human capital development in early childhood include: malnutrition, disease, illness, injury, trauma,

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inadequate or non-existent healthcare, and exposure to environmental toxins, chronic illness, and so on.
Food insecurity influences health and development through its impacts on nutrition and as a component
of overall family stress. The condition of food insecurity includes both inadequate quantities and
inadequate quality of nutrients available. At less severe levels of food insecurity, household food
managers (usually mothers) trade off food quality for quantity to prevent household members, especially
children, from feeling persistently hungry. Several kinds of social infrastructures can influence the
relationships between food insecurity and child health, growth and development by helping to prevent
food insecurity from occurring, or by moderating its effects once it occurs. Poor nutrition, and by
extension food insecurity, has been shown to influence health and well-being throughout the life cycle,
from the prenatal period on into elder years. Parental depression has been associated with food
insecurity, and in many contexts, not limited to that involving food insecurity; such depression has been
linked with adverse impacts on parenting, parent child interaction and attachment, child growth,
development, health, and wellbeing. (Burke)
One of the things that people try to focus on when it comes to food insecurity is that how it
affects children. Whether it is mental or physical affects. However, people are trying to figure out if food
insecure children who are not getting the proper nutrients and proper diet if it is affecting them with
education or even being physically active. One of the places that always been in a food insecurity
situation is Haiti. When it seems like they are getting back on their feet a hurricane comes in and attacks
Haiti knocking them down again. Haiti food insecurity is a big deal.
All places are different when it comes to child hunger, some regions children aren't starving, but
there are other regions where children are starving. Haiti has been trying to get back on their feet since
hurricane Katrina. According to Ann M. Simmons about 3.6 million people or more than a third of the
country's population have been driven deeper into poverty and hunger and are struggling to access a

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reliable supply of food. 1.5 million Are considered "severely food insecure." Up to 70% in some areas
because of the crisis was compounded by losses in the main harvest. Haiti being one of the world's
poorest nations, where agriculture employs half of working people. (Simmons)
In Cincinnati many residents are still struggling with a basic need for food. According to the
Ohio Children's Hunger Alliance more than 133,000 families receive food assistance in Hamilton
County. That's one in six people in the county. Nearly 40% Cincinnati residents surveyed reported at
least occasional difficulties obtaining food. According to the World Health Organization a person food
insecure when they cannot afford food, can't easily access food for geographical reasons, or are unsure
about where they will get food in the future. One-third of the city's population is below the poverty line.
Cincinnati also ranks second in the nation in childhood poverty behind Detroit. (Swartsell)
Growing up when I was younger I lived in a house hold that was food insecure. My parents didn't
make much money and could barely afford to feed their children. We had transportation to get to the
grocery store, but just like everyone else my parents would buy food that wasn't healthy and that would
last awhile. Maybe a loaf of bread, some ham, and a couple bag of chips. Growing up I didn't like my
vegetables anyways, maybe it's because my parents never made them when it was dinner time. My
parents always tried their best to have food on the table for their kids though, but some days they would
wonder how they were going to put food on the table. Sometimes they would borrow money to go buy
groceries until they got their next pay check. Needless to say my parents also weren't smart with their
money. Since I did grow up in a food insecure home it is hard on the parents and children, and when
you're so hungry it's hard to focus on school work or anything in general.
When it comes to growing children and the government helping them out, the help isn't almost as
near as much that is needed. WIC helps out mothers with infants which studies have shown it influences

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food insecurity, which if you think about it seems a bit crazy because WIC is supposed to help mothers
and infants with food. Food insecurity is always going to occur throughout the world, and people are
always going to try to help, but there will never be enough help to help those in need. When people say
that minimum wage should be raised and it will help those homes that are food insecure. Raising
minimum wage won't help solve food insecure problems. (Thevathasan)
What will the world do to help those families who are food insecure? Many programs are out
there who help those in need for food. However, it seems as if more programs need to come together to
stop children from starving.

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WORK CITED
Burke, Michael P., et al. "Severity of Household Food Insecurity Is Positively Associated With
Mental Disorders among Children and Adolescents in the United States." Journal of
Nutrition 146.10 (2016): 2019-2026. Food Science Source. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Cook, John. "No Kid Hungry." Child Food Insecurity: The Economic Impact on Our Nation
(2009): n. page. Child Food Insecurity. Feeding America. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Gundersen, Craig, and James P. Ziliak. "Food Insecurity among Children in the United States."
Southern Economic Journal 82.4 (2016): 1059-1061. Business Source Complete. Web. 25
Oct. 2016.
Ruiz, Ernesto, Growing Children: The relationship between food insecurity and child growth and
development. David Himmelgreen, April 28, 2014
Simmons, Ann M. "Drought Compounds Food Crisis in Haiti." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles
Times, 11 Feb. 2016. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.
Sun, Jing, et al. "Research Article: Childhood Adversity and Adult Reports of Food Insecurity
among Households with Children." American Journal of Preventive Medicine 50. (2016):
561-572. Science Direct. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Swartsell Nick. A Growing Hunger: Cincinnatis food insecurity problem is growing and experts
say it needs serious attention. 21 January 2015

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Thevathasan, Vanessa. "The Impact of Food Insecurity and Malnutrition on Children." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Oct. 2014. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.