Understanding Childhood Hunger

Facts on Childhood Hunger

Even with facts and figures like these, childhood hunger in America isn't immediately visible. Despite the numbers, we know how to connect families with nutritious food, and make sure no child in America grows up hungry.

Why Childhood Hunger Is Important

Hunger impairs our children’s health in significant and long-lasting ways:

  • Impedes growth and development
  • More illness, including stomach- and head aches, colds, ear infections and fatigue
  • Poorer mental health
  • More hospitalizations
  • Greater susceptibility to obesity and its harmful health consequences

Hunger predisposes our children to behavioral difficulties, including:

  • More aggressive behavior
  • Higher levels of hyperactivity, anxiety and/or passivity
  • Difficulty getting along with other children
  • Greater need for mental health services

Hunger impedes our children’s ability to learn and perform academically. Hungry children are likely to:

  • Have impaired cognitive functioning and diminished capacity to learn
  • Achieve lower test scores and overall school performance
  • Repeat a grade
  • Experience school absences, tardiness and school suspensions

Food Security

49.1 million Americans - including nearly 17 million children - don’t have access to enough healthy food to thrive. They are food insecure and facing hunger.

Food insecurityexists in 14.6% of all U.S. households:

  • 37.2% of all single-mom households
  • 42.2% of all households at or below the poverty line

Food insecure families (17.2 million households):

  • 52.1 % of all food-insecure households are white
  • 48.7% — 8.3 million — have kids under 18; 52.3% of these are single-parent households
  • 33.8% live in major cities
  • 33.3% live at or below the poverty line
  • 23.1 % — nearly one-quarter — of food insecure households have kids under 6

Food-insecure children (Nearly 17 million kids living at risk of hunger)

  • 48.7% live in married-couple families
  • 41.9% live in single-mom families
  • 41.2% live at or below the poverty line.
  • 40.3% live in the South
  • 41.8% live in cities outside of major metro areas

Source:”Household Food Security in the United States, 2007; U.S.D.A. Economic Research Service, November 2008; http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err66/.

Poverty

  • $21,834 annual income is the poverty threshold for a family of four, or $419.89 per week (2008).
  • 39.8 million — 13.2 percent —Americans live in poverty; 14.1 million of them are children (2008).
  • 744,000 more children live in poverty now than a year ago.
  • 19% of American children live in poverty, a higher percentage than any other age group.

Source: “Income, Poverty and Health Coverage in the United States:2007; U.S. Dept. of Commerce U.S. Census Bureau, August 2008; http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf.

Food Assistance Programs & Resources

Child nutrition programs make a positive difference. For families that use them, they can mean the difference between empty tummies and the ability to function productively and healthfully. For children, they can mean the difference between healthy growth…and failure to thrive.

  • 1 in 5 Americans use at least one of USDA’s food and nutrition assistance programs during the year.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, “Leading the Fight Against Hunger,” June 2008; http://www.fns.usda.gov/fncs/hunger.pdf.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly “food stamps”):
  • The average monthly SNAP benefit is $132.99 per person, or $1.43 per meal.
  • 36.5 million Americans used SNAP in August 2009, more than at any time in the past 3 years, according to the most recent U.S.D.A. report.
  • 18.25 million American children received SNAP benefits in August 2009, according to the most recent U.S.D.A. report.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Monthly Summary; http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/34SNAPmonthly.htm. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, “Leading the Fight Against Hunger,” June 2008; http://www.fns.usda.gov/fncs/hunger.pdf.

Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC):
  • 9.3 million American women and children under the age of 5 participated in WIC (August 2009).
  • 6.5 million -75%— of 2008 participants were children and infants.
  • $42.77 was the average monthly food benefit each participant received in 2009, down 2% from August 2008.
  • Every $1 spent on WIC results in $1.77 to $3.13 in Medicaid savings for newborns and their mothers.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children Monthly Data, January 28, 2009; http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/37WIC_Monthly.htm.

National School Lunch Program:
  • On an average school day, 31 million American children eat a federally funded school lunch (2008).
  • 18.5 million — 60% — of these children participate in the free or reduced-price school lunch program, 900,000 more than a year ago

Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, Summary of Food and Nutrition Service Programs, January 28, 2009; http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/currentsum.htm.

National School Breakfast Program
  • On a typical school day, 10.6 million school children eat school breakfast (2008).
  • 8.5 million school children receive their breakfast for free or at a reduced price — 270,000 more than a year ago
  • 10 million eligible children do not get a free or reduced price school breakfast.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, National School Breakfast Program Summary, January 28, 2009; http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/sbsummar.htm.

Summer Food Service Program
  • 32,700 sites serve 2.1 million children 129.8 million meals (2008)
  • 16.3 million kids qualify for summer meals but don’t receive them.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, Summer Food Service Program Summary; http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/sfsummar.htm.

Child and Adult Care Program

3 million children benefit from meals and snacks served at child care facilities participating in USDA’s Child & Adult Care Food Program.

Facilities that care for children serve 97% of the 1.8 billion meals provided through the Child & Adult Care Food Program annually.

Earned Income Tax Credit

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) may be the “single most important policy” for increasing employment and income, and reducing cash welfare assistance among female-headed households.

EITC has moved 4.4 million Americans out of poverty, including 2.4 million children, in a single year. Households use the money to pay for basics including housing, utilities and food.

Food Banks

Food banks and food-rescue organizations provide emergency hunger-relief to 9% of all Americans-about 25 million persons.

More than one-third of individuals served by food banks are children under 18. Households with children (particularly those headed by a single female or with children under the age of 6) are nearly twice as likely to use food pantries as those without children.

Food pantries provide food to more than 4 million American children.

More than 1 of every 5 households that uses a food pantry does so “almost every month.”

Resources

USDA Economic Research Service, “Household Food Security in the United States, 2005, www.ers.usda.gov/Publications

Center on Hunger and Poverty, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, The Consequences of Hunger and Food Insecurity for Children, June 2002, www.centeronhunger.org

America’s Second Harvest - The Nation’s Food Bank Network, The Almanac of Hunger in America 2006, www.secondharvest.org

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, August 2005, www.cbpp.org

Federal Register, Vol. 73, No. 15, January 23, 2008

USDA Economic Research Service, The Food Assistance Landscape, March 2006, www.ers.usda.gov/Publications

Food Research and Action Center, State of the State 2006 report, www.frac.org

Children’s Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program, Food Stamps as Medicine, A New Perspective on Children’s Health, February 2007, www.c-snap.org

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