Child Well Being: Food Security

Food insecurity is defined as having “limited access to adequate food due to financial and other resources.” Families experiencing food insecurity do not know where their next meal is coming from.

What We Know from the Food Research and Action Center³⁸

• Nationally, one in 26 households experience very low food security.
• Twenty-one states have rates of very low food security that exceed the national average.

Since June 2008, requests for food aid have risen from 20% to 40%, and food programs have been forced to turn away people who are hungry. Experts expect demand for aid to grow even more dramatically in 2009.²⁶

Families living in poverty are forced every day to make painful decisions about how to spend scarce resources. When family budgets are stretched so thin that a family must decide between buying groceries or paying rent, an unexpected expense or emergency may catapult that family into homelessness. The new surge in requests for food aid suggests that for the neediest Americans, bills outpace their ability to pay. This puts them at risk for homelessness and hunger.

Homelessness and hunger are inextricably interwoven. Homeless children suffer from a lack of access to nutritional meals. Even a slight failure to eat nutritional foods gravely threatens behavior, school performance, and cognitive development.²⁷ We know that:²⁸

• Children without homes are twice as likely as other children to experience hunger.
• More than one-third of homeless children have been forced to skip meals.
• Two-thirds of homeless children worry they won’t have enough to eat.

Food Security and Insecurity Among U.S. Households with Children in 2005²⁹

What does it mean to be food secure? Food security is “assured access for every person to enough nutritious food to sustain an active and healthy life including food availability (adequate food supply); food access (people can get to food); and appropriate food use (the absorption of essential nutrients).”³⁰ Eighty-four percent of U.S. households with children are “food secure.” The remaining 16% are food insecure.³¹ Food insecurity is defined as having “limited access to adequate food due to financial and other resources.”³² Families experiencing food insecurity do not know where their next meal is coming from. The U.S. Department of Agriculture further specifies a “very low food secure category,” defined as households that experience food insecurity with hunger, and report “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.”³³ In 2005, approximately one-third of food-insecure households or about 4.4 million households (3.9%) experienced very low food security.34

What safety nets are available to families facing food insecurity? Although various federal safety net programs aimed at alleviating hunger and poor nutrition are effective, they don’t reach enough poor families and children. These programs – including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (better known as the WIC program), National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, and the Summer Food Service Program – play a critical role in promoting child well-being and preventing homelessness. An estimated 2.2 million Americans are raised above the poverty line each year because they receive SNAP benefits. In fact, SNAP has been called “the single most effective program in lifting children out of extreme poverty.”

Despite the effectiveness of the major food safety net programs in supporting families, approximately 45% of all food insecure American households did not participate in any of them.36 Additionally, the U.S. Department of Labor reports that food prices have increased over five percent between May 2007 and May 2008, leaving many families who receive food assistance falling short at the end of the month.³⁷ For families who are homeless or at-risk of homelessness, participation in these safety net programs may make all the difference. When parents make the painful decision to purchase groceries instead of paying rent, they risk losing their home. Additionally, families who are already homeless often have little to no income. As they construct family budgets, help buying groceries may make the difference between exiting or remaining in shelter.

States with Very Low Food Security Rates (higher than the national average 3.9%)³⁹