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As a lot of us move the notches on the belts one spot to the left and read internet recipes for detox teas, your dear Aunty would like to remind one and all that we do have what is coyly referred to by the government folks as ‘food insecurity’. Now, believe it or not, they do differentiate between this ‘insecurity’ thingy and plain ol’ garden variety hunger.
Food insecurity WITH hunger is this: Reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.
Food insecurity WITHOUT hunger is this: Reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake. Here’s the federal site with all their terms defined:labels.
Over this past week, there was a report of a review by Share Our Strength (which is a national organization of teachers fighting hunger in the classroom) which outlined one stark, red flag item: Over 63% of teachers report buying food for their classrooms out of their own pockets, every single month. The report is titled, Hunger In America’s Classrooms. Hunger in America’s Classrooms
At the same time, we have reports that we waste huge amounts of food in this country. Wasting 1400 Calories a day
Take the time to read the hunger report. The data from teachers was collected in October of this year. It does not matter where the reports are coming from – whether regionally, or demographically, urban/rural/suburban, teachers have seen a large increase in hunger. They believe more kids are getting subsidized lunches for sure. But they also know that parents are not signing their kids up for school breakfast programs because of the stigma attached, which is why the teachers are promoting in-classroom breakfast programs for everyone. Everyone gets a good breakfast. Everyone the same.
Kids don’t pay attention in the classroom when they are hungry. They can’t do their work at home when they are hungry (and when the home situation is in flux, which considering the growth of evictions and homelessness over the past several years – let’s not try to fool ourselves about when this economic crisis started, shall we?). They cannot have academic or social success at school under those conditions. For kids, this sets up a sure downward spiral of “I can’t..I don’t..I won’t.”
For all of our President’s emphasis on academic excellence and parental involvement, he’s missing something central to the whole discussion.
Kids can’t succeed at schoolwork if they are anxious about home and lack regular, anticipated, and socially stable nutritional experiences. That’s Aunt Toby’s government gibberish for good, solid, nutritious mealtimes.
We need to do something about kids’ nutrition. Period. And this goes hand in hand with good paying jobs for Mommies and Daddies.
Get on the stick, Barack.
(photo courtesy of I Are Rowell)
38 Comments
To the Food Bank!
And feed the homeless. Food Not Bombs.
My brother has been teaching second grade in a poor section of town for roughly 25 years. He and his fellow teachers are always collecting money and going out to buy food for the kids that come to school hungry.
Most of the kids get their lunches for free but the school does not provide breakfast. The problem isn’t just that the kids come to school hungry because they’ve missed breakfast. Many come to school without eating the night before as well.
I don’t know how the government classifies it but my brother classifies it as “these kids are starving.”
Yep..you can call it any piece of government-eeze that you want to, but it comes down to ‘no food and empty tummy’.
And that is just another of our national disgraces.
How many can we endure?
In a country as rich as ours, a country that can afford multi-billion dollar bail-outs and two wars, there is no reason for anyone to have to go hungry.
Approximately 50% of the kids at a local school system are on the free/reduced lunch program. Back in the day, it was a rare occurrence…and now it’s nearly standard.
I think in my brother’s school it’s closer to 100%. It’s an exceptional poor area. No kids should miss meals in this county. As you all have said…a national disgrace.
Toby thanks for this important post. There is real hunger in this country and the problem is growing. Our national shame.
I’m going to put on my ‘tough love’ Aunty hat here on this. Yes, this is a national disgrace. Yes, this is a totally uncharitable, unacceptable situation. But if you take the position that this country is falling behind in terms of academics… if you take the position that this country is falling behind in terms of producing the technicians, scientists, inventors, thinkers — people who are the basis of the new economy that we desperately need (no – I still want banking and the financial industry to be filled with really dull, unimaginative people)…if you take the position that we need to fight for our place in the world economy — and fight hard and cleverly… then the American kitchen table and the American classroom are the two fields of battle that we absolutely need to win. Ten years from now, today’s elementary school kids will — or will not — be going to college. We won’t even talk about college affordability — let’s just talk about their being prepared to go and to succeed. To do that, they have to be able to succeed at every step along the way. And if they are hungry and scared, there is no way they will be able to do that.
There are many families out there who are eligible to receive food stamps, but don’t do so because they are too proud to accept a handout.
It is unfortunate ,these folks don’t realize that if they have worked in their lives and paid taxes then they “paid” for those food stamps or they paid so someone else could receive them,and it is now their turn to receive this benefit.
I was trying to find some statistics on what might be referred to as ‘the new poor’ – people who have always been in the middle class – even if they had struggled. People who now have lost their jobs, lost their homes or been evicted from their rental residences, people who have never been in the government assistance system. Yes, perhaps it is pride (as in the breakfast program stigma situation), but I also think part of it is that they do not have a clue how to access the system. One of the items in the hunger report is that basically teachers are now the front line on getting families into the system – providing forms, providing information, getting parents to fill out the forms, telling them how to access help. And having to take money out of their pockets to feed the kids too. And also getting slammed by taxpayers as ‘overpaid’ and ‘lazy’ etc. Too much.
A combination of the post and comments that I just sent to the WH:
“Food insecurity” with or without hunger is a national disgrace. In a country as rich as ours, with a willingness to provide trillions to failed financial institutions and fight not one, but two, wars, that a single child goes hungry and where teachers routinely feed children a nutritious breakfast out their own pockets is beyond comprehension.
The federal government ensures that corporations, banks and the war industry never hunger for profit while children and their parents struggle to put food in their stomachs.
Shame on you.
w3rd
ygm
back at ya! I sent newt one too so once you get it i’ll start up a FDL thread for all the FDLers.
I work in a residential home for troubled teens . It has occurred to me many times over that these guys are the lucky ones. For every kid in the program and receiving services there are probably 10 others who aren’t.
And the truth is, most parents feed their kids first, and go without themselves, in order that their kids eat. For every child going hungry there are some hungry moms,dads, and g-parents.
Just as the finance sector, globalization in general, and the health insurance “industry” have failed completely to fulfill every promise they ever made, have broken every promise given in justification of being allowed to exist in the first place, so industrial agriculture promised if it was allowed to exist, if it was allowed to destroy the family farm and drive the vast majority of farmers off the land, it would provide sufficient cheap, nutritious food for all Americans.
We now know that this promise too was a lie. Industrial agriculture is another failed system which has broken the social contract and forfeited all right to exist.
So the moral imperative is for America to take back its farms. This will soon be a physical imperative as well, as fossil fuel supplies will not long be sufficient to continue with this agricultural model.
We need millions of farmers, and we have a right to become these farmers. That’s the great reform upon which we must embark.
“and we have a right to become these farmers”
I’m not sure about that but even if it came to pass I need to warn you farming is hard work. You’d never get a progressive to work that hard.
Nothing like insulting people.
I’m a progressive and have farmed and been a hand on a cattle ranch. Just because I read a lot doesn’t mean I’m afraid of work.
Ya might want to work on that bitter streak that shows through.
um, yeah…I worked on a farm a year ago for the entire summer. I loved it.
Your sweeping generalization leaves a lot to be desired.
Seems I’ve hit a nerve.
Yeah…when you blatantly lie people will respond. I’m from Sacramento, and have lived in smaller communities around the area and know lots of farmers. The small farmers are almost all progressives. The corporate farmers, not so much.
Dude spends most of his time here blowin’ smoke. Just another attention seeking dullard.
OK…OK. I apologize. I’m sure you’d all be great working on the farm.
Can I get one of you to go out and feed the bush hog for me? He’s probably getting hungry.
Yeah, he does look like he has gas. Or needs some. And maybe a touch of oil on the joints?
Bush Hog? As in that contraption that clears land?
Nice try.
Never? I guess I’d not want to meet the ghost of Robert LaFollette.
http://www.lafollette.wisc.edu/publications/otherpublications/LaFollette/LaFLegacy.html
And, we consider ourselves pretty much progressives here at Chez Siberia – and I’m sure the sheep, goats, bees, chickens, et al. that we’ve raised for our local customers would considered us as much farmers as anyone. And we did stay up all night with sheep and goats when the babies arrived and then got dressed to go work in town. I think that’s hard working enough.
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Many thanks, Karen.
thanks, Toby.
I just got through reading this by Malalai Joya
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23943.htm
Where is all that money going????
Some of it is probably making its way back here in the diplomatic pouch to find a nice home in a numbered Cayman Island account.
An unhealthy nation produces a “sick” society.
Gitcheegumee
As an elementary teacher I look at this a little differently. In my district we have both free breakfast and free lunch and about 80% of my school is eligible for both programs. So I do see kids eating and getting enough food. However, I am really concerned about the quality of food being served in the school programs and most people are aware of the high fat and unhealthy foods that are served in schools. We need to change the school breakfast and lunch programs to insure all kids are eating healthy foods. Ignoring this problem while trying to eradicate “hunger” seems to be missing the forest from the trees.
@34
Tinman seems a bit of a tin foil hatter,methinks.
You can’t feed people when You are to busy feeding a bloated Government, Military, and Wall Street.
One day of a war would feed every child in America for a week.
Our priorities are so far off track they will never be fixed, but the American People are to blame because they support our Government, and all the bad things that are devouring the wealth of this Nation, and it’s ability to sustain itself.