By Angelia Roggie
Features Editor
Children throughout the United States go hungry every day and can’t get the nutrition they need. How many? Sixteen million — the population of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia combined to be exact— according to the Food Network documentary “Hunger Hits Home,” which premiered last Saturday.
The hour-long documentary, sponsored by the Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign, followed three families dealing with hunger, a hunger-relief program and a food pantry. The presentation also provided general information about child hunger and included interviews with government leaders and schools to chronicle the hunger epidemic in America. What I found out was truly disturbing.
One in five children in America struggle with hunger.
U.S. Representative Jim McGovern (Dem. – Massachusetts) said it best in the documentary.
“We’re the richest country in the world, yet we can’t feed our own children,” he said. “We should be ashamed.”
How can we stand by as a food-filled country and still let people starve? We spend $0.9 billion on defense, $1.1 trillion on health care and $0.7 billion on welfare, according to usgovernmentspending.com, yet we can’t figure out how to feed our children properly.
“Our nation should be able to feed our children,” said Governor Dem. Martin O’Malley (D—M.D.) in his interview. “And if we can’t do that, there’s not a whole lot of hope for anything else we hope to do as a people.”
Eleven million children still miss breakfast, even though 70 percent of the money in the United States Department of Agriculture goes to nutrition assessment, according to the documentary. States are in charge of what they do with this money, yet some are not able to use it effectively because of their state’s size and how much is actually needed.
“Hunger Hits Home” demonstrated that hunger occurs in children especially now because many parents have lost their jobs (8.2 percent unemployment rate, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) and are unable to afford food because of the economic downturn. It seems hunger would decrease if the government created more programs focused on the health and well being of its citizens rather than trying to just pump money into the country to stimulate the economy and consumer spending. After all, people probably won’t buy much of anything if they can’t even afford to feed their families.
Our children belong in a world where starvation is no longer an issue and they can reap the joys of childhood. In fact, when kids have a good breakfast, academics improve and they have fewer incidents of sickness, according to the documentary Children who are hungry are more prone to be angry or aggressive, according to “Hunger Hits Home.” We can curb any of these issues caused by hunger if we give children the number one tool they need to focus: food.
We can all do our part to help children live a hunger-free life. Individuals can volunteer at the Warming House or other soup kitchens, donate to their local food pantry or give their time to raising money for needy families.
Children should live in an environment where food is always an option. Food is a necessity and a right, not a decision.
roggieac10@bonaventure.edu
