As I See It - Food Report a Wake-Up Call

On November 19, the United States Department of Agriculture released its annual report Household Food Security in the United States, 2008. The findings of this most recent update are disturbing, to say the least.

Bluntly put, 49.1 million Americans – including 16.7 million children – are malnourished. This number is the highest in the fourteen years that the department has tracked “food insecurity” and represents an increase of 13 million people (36%) over the 2007 figure. And this does not even take into account the number of people who have joined the ranks of the hungry in 2009 as a result of the Great Recession.

That this report illuminates a burgeoning third world within our nation’s borders should be a wake-up call to all Americans. Some may ask why?

Because hungry children cannot learn, grow, or meet their full potential. Because hungry adults are less productive in the workplace. Because hungry people of all ages are a drain on the Emergency Room resources most must use as their source of primary care. Because it costs the nation over $90 billion a year to look the other way.

And most of all, because the United Sates is the most successful economy the world has ever seen, with a standard of living far surpassing that of all but a few countries. To have hunger of this magnitude within our midst is a moral abomination.

The words of President Obama, in a Press Release responding to this report, underscore the dire circumstances in which we find ourselves as a nation:

“As American families prepare to gather for Thanksgiving, we received an unsettling report from the U. S. Department of Agriculture that found that hunger rose significantly last year. This trend was already painfully clear in many communities across our nation, where food stamp applications are surging and food pantry shelves are emptying.

It is particularly troubling that there were more than 500,000 families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year.”

And if you think this is a problem somewhere other than our own state, think again. The prevalence of hunger in Pennsylvania increased from 10% in the last report to 11.2% in the current report. Translating cold statistics into warm bodies – that’s 1.4 million of our relatives, friends and neighbors who are unable to consistently get enough to eat.

Borrowing from the old phrase “think globally, act locally”, there is much we can do to reverse this trend and provide the daily sustenance that should be every person’s birthright. Until such time there are enough jobs offering family-sustaining wages so that only those who by their own choice are hungry, we must:

• learn about the causes of hunger and its implications
• acknowledge and accept the fact that hunger effects all of us
• recognize that local food banks and food pantries are a vital emergency response, not a solution, to the problem
• assure that available federal feeding programs are fully utilized in our communities
• pressure our elected officials to implement meaningful improvements – in funding and policy – so that all hungry people are fed

In short, we need to re-evaluate our priorities as a nation, which is a euphemism for how money is spent. Even with all the problems in the world today, if we continue to look outward at the expense of our own people, whatever promise the future may hold will remain shallow and unfulfilled.

Joseph A. Quattrocchi is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center.

November 26, 2009