Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity: Ending Childhoold Hunger in America

From the Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity:  

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity will be running a series of commentaries in the summer of 2012 on the fight to end childhood hunger in America.  

This commentary is the seventh installment in the series, which is entitled “Ending Childhood Hunger in America.”

by James Weill, Food Research and Action Center 

In 2010, 16 million children lived in food insecure households and 22 percent of all American children lived in poverty. These facts are unacceptable. The United States should be and can be a place where all children have the adequate and nutritious food they need to build healthy bodies and strong minds, allowing them to reach their full potential. This is a practical as well as a moral imperative—making sure children are well fed is necessary if America is to reach its health, education, economic, and fiscal goals.

Yet it is not enough to feed children and leave parents in crisis. When parents themselves are struggling with hunger, even while they feed their children adequately, there are adverse effects not just for parents but for the development, health, mental health, and learning of children. That’s why ending childhood hunger must also mean ending family food insecurity. 

Read the full commentary online.