Food Insecurity In Children

Due to food-insecurity, children around the world are suffering from malnourishment. Many children, unfortunately, come from low-income families, which turn to government-funded programs such as WIC. Food-insecurity impacted children mentally and physically. Food-insecurity can cause chronic diseases, obesity, and behavior problems.

WIC is a government-funded program for Women, Infants, and Children. There are five categories of low-income people. Three of them are for women, which are pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women. The other two categories are infants who are 0 to 12 months old, and Children who are 13 months to five years old. WIC purpose is to help improve their participant's health status.

Children who live in poverty

Toddlers with iron deficiency are likely to have delays in socioemotional and neurophysiological development. The article Food insecurity and hunger: A review of the effects on children's health and behaviour asserts, " In addition, children in food-insecure households tend to have diets that are high in refined sugars and low in iron, which can have behavioural consequences including hyperkinesia, inattention and poor memory (8).", which suggest that food-insecure children are likely to consume foods that affect their behavior.

In the article Childhood Food Insecurity in the U.S.: Trends, Causes, and Policy Options, defines food insecurity as, "a situation that exists whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways is limited or uncertain.” Having limited or no access to healthier foods, children are fed lower quality foods. Constantly consuming non-nutritious food can cause

There are many other programs for children such as the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program listed in the article Childhood Food Insecurity in the U.S.: Trends, Causes, and Policy Options. Programs such as these, help provide children with free meals during school. Although some of the food is quite healthy, children have access to food which might be the case at home.

Other factors that can lead children to be food insecure are having a parent(s) with disabilities, immigrant, and/or incarcerated. On page nineteen of Research Opportunities Concerning the Causes and Consequences of Child Food Insecurity and Hunger: A Workshop Summary, you're able to see graphs that show the percentage food insecurity among children. As you can see within food-insecure household including children have an adult with a part-time job, unemployed, disabled with no job, or no job due to reasons other than disability.

In a different article, Food Insecurity: Indicators of Child and Youth Well-Being, their graph shows the percentage of food insecure children are categorized by Race and Hispanic Origin and Family structure. The graph by Family structure, the highest percentage is about 33%, which are a food-insecure household with a Female head and no spouse. I would say this can be concluded as a single