Food insecurity is a fact for millions of American every day in our country. Children, adults, and the elderly of all races, living in poverty or in lower middle class families, are at a higher risk of not having enough to eat. The United States, in 2012, used roughly 40% or 915 million acres of all US land as farmland (USDA 2014, 1), yet as a nation we cannot feed all of our people. The American government subsidizes commodity crops, such as corn, wheat, and soy more than any other type of crop in the United States, (This does not include the subsidies directly paid to the meat and dairy industry, which is a whole other paper!). Government subsidies are less common for the production of fresh fruits and vegetables. Government subsidies encourage farmers to grow commodity crops instead of growing fruits and vegetables for consumers at competitive prices creating food insecurity. The cheap production of commodity crops force families in the lower middle class and poverty to choose a diet of processed food, which are less nutritious than fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains causing many of the health problems that we see in the population today. According to the USDA website in 2015, 12.7 percent, or 15.8 million of American households were food insecure. A food-insecure household is a household that had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough nutritious food for all the members in a household due to a lack of resources (Coleman-Jensen, et al.
According to the USDA's Economic Research Service, the food-insecure are those families in America that at times didn't know whether they had or could find enough food to meet their needs. This was due to the lack of money or other resources, such as government assistance or community food banks (USDA ERS - Food Security in the U.S.). In it's most recent study, the Economic Research Service found that as of 2013, 80.5 percent of families in the U.S. were food secure, leavinf over 49 million people food-insecure (USDA ERS - Food Security in the U.S.). Of that 49 million, nearly 9 million children lived in food-insecure households (USDA ERS - Food Security in the U.S.).
Food insecurity is defined as “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”1 Food insecurity data found that in America, 12.7% of households were food insecure at some point and 5% of households had very low food security in 2015.2 The prevalence of food insecurity in Ohio was greater than the national average in 2015, with 16.1% of households reporting food insecurity.2
With our nation sliding from its high ranks of production, it is more essential than ever to produce more and assist those who don't have the resources in their hometown. Federal programs, such as Feeding America, help rise the American households in need out of food insecurities. Currently farmers across the nation have a negative output growth. From 1948 to currently, within the last five years, the average output growth rate has decreased by a little over 1 percent. As the years went on the output growth rate has declined, meaning only one thing, the farmers can't make enough food for this nation. With this number being in the negatives that means that the farmers aren't even making enough to beat the ever growing demand, instead they are falling short of the requirements. But the input, such as labor, capital and materials, is increasing. Since the average was taken between the years of 2000 and 2007 the amount of labor hours has gone up by almost 10%, the amount of capital has increased by almost 0.1%, and the materials has substantially gone up by about 0.7%. Using another table, the USDA included the total factor productivity rates, which have also declined by 0.02%. With numbers like these our nation needs to provide more help to the farmers who slave over the land. The farmers need more land, workers and money in order to even continue with their average
Approximately 13.6 people live in these areas, and are suffering from food insecurity (Wright, Donley, Gualtieri, & Strickhouser, 2016). Food insecurity is when there is still food available, but the problem is that the food available is not nutritionally capable of supporting a healthy diet and is still overpriced (Wright et al,
Did you know that in 2014 there were 48.1 million Americans that lived in food insecure households? When a household is food insecure, it means that its residents have trouble meeting their basic nutritional needs due to lack of money or
Food Insecurity is defined as access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life, and at a minimum includes the following: the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods and the assured ability to acquire personally acceptable foods in a socially acceptable way, qualified by their involuntariness and periodicity. Even though food insecurity affects everyone in the household, it may also affect them differently. Food insecurity mostly exists whenever food security is limited. Uncertain or limited availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods results chronic diseases psychological, and suicidal syndrome (Cook & Frank, 2008)
Food insecurity is defined as the inadequate access to nutritious food and is simply represented by the orange slice on the plate. The unhealthy products (i.e., processed meat and non-perishable items) further emphasize food insecurity by showing the population’s unhealthy, yet
According to the United Nations, food security is defined as “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (“Rome Declaration,” 1996). Canada has adopted this definition, although they monitor food insecurity per each household and analyze financial barriers causing the situation. Research has shown that 62.2% of households
Astyk and Newton, in their essay: The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Go Hungry, explains that “around the world, industrial agriculture has consolidated land ownership into the hands of smaller and smaller populations” destroying local self-sufficiency (518). Individuals are no longer able to grow own fresh, healthy foods to feed their family. They now depend on industrially grown crops and processed foods loaded with chemicals for food. Additionally, because of the farm policy, farmers that continue to cultivate healthy produce like fruits and vegetables get little or no government support, thus the higher prices of fresh produce seen today at our grocery stores.
According to Feeding America, statistics show that 43.1 million people in the United States in 2015 are in poverty, including 14.5 million children. When we think of that number of people in poverty we know that living in poverty directly relates to food insecurity. A slightly higher number of people are food
Nutrition is important for healthy life. Many people are still hungry around the world even though there is mass production of food. This is because of unhealthy food production. In today’s world we see many obese people because of high intake of high fat and cholesterol containing food. It is important to have a healthy diet/ nutritional intake for individuals to have good foundation for physical and mental health. Now a day’s healthy food is getting more expensive rather than unhealthy food. Poor people are forced to eat unhealthy food, while the rich can afford to eat whatever the please. Food insecurity is caused by individuals not having healthy food for their families due to their low income or political and
Food insecurity is the “state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food,” according to the Oxford Dictionary. It is a widespread problem on college campuses across the nation. While food insecurity only impacts 14% of households, 48% of college students claim to be food insecure. This problem disproportionately impacts first generation college students, students of color, and students who need financial aid, as noted by the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness.
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this are working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government have now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors and unemployment have cause food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien,
Within the United States, 12.7% of households had been food insecure at some point within 2015, meaning that not enough money was had to spend on food. ("United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service", par. 3) With this in mind, one of the largest problems when it comes to nutrition in the developed countries of the world is the availability of nutritious food to the lower classes because lower quality processed food is easier to obtain than nutritious food. This only seems to be a trend within developed countries so this argument will only focus on the developed countries such as the United States and France. Underdeveloped countries are left outside of these studies as they do not have widespread statistical values for any of their nutrition at any of the levels of
The 2015 Statistical Analysis Poverty Level Data report shows in the United States, there was an increase in which families’ are able to provide food per person within their household. After the devastating financial and economic crisis in 2008, families have been in financial detriment for years trying to maintain consistency in providing food, support, and shelter. Not until the government 2015 report, there were clear evidence of a sufficient rise in food surplus in low income families since 2008. According to the governmental statistical report, 14% of households were suffering from food deficiency. In other words, 17.5 million households, approximate one out of every seven homes could not provide nourishment on a regular basis. This estimate is down from the last statistical data recorded in 2011 at 14.9%.