Research Paper On Food Insecurity

Answer the following statements with often, sometimes, or never. “The food that we bought just didn’t last and we didn’t have money to get more, the children were not eating enough because we just couldn’t afford enough food, the children could not eat for a whole day because there wasn’t enough money for food”. Answering often or sometimes to these statements not only means that you are food insecure, but that your children are too. These are just 3 of 18 questions used by the Census Bureau to determine the category of food insecurity a family is facing. Food insecurity is not the same as hunger. Hunger is a personal, physical sensation of discomfort while food insecurity refers to a lack of financial resources for nutritious food (“What is

Many studies have concluded that children that live in a household with a mother who is mentally ill have a significantly higher chance of being food insecure. Dr. Kelly Noonan, professor of Economics, at Rider University used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth Cohort for her research. “The study interviewed the parents and caregivers (including early child hood teachers) of 14,000 children born in 2001 four times between birth and the start of kindergarten. They found that when mothers are moderately to severely depressed, the risk of child and household food insecurity rises by 50 to 80 percent, depending on the measure of insecurity” (Gundersen 5). Adults who are mentally or physically ill are also more likely to be depressed and abuse substances, therefore making them less likely to work and have a steady income. When children are relying on their parents for food to meet their nutritional needs and the parents can’t provide things can get dangerous. Although the causes of food insecurity are often misinterpreted, so are the government assistance

Many assume that the receivers are unemployed, trying to take advantage of the government, and are lazy. The truth is that food insecurity leads to high levels of stress and reduced well-being due to the lack of nutritional intake. In 2013 researchers concluded that SNAP participants are between 14.9 and 36.6 percentage points less likely to be food insecure than nonparticipants (Gunderson 97). Given SNAP’s pronounced effect on reducing food insecurity, it’s likely that, without the increase in SNAP participation, food insecurity rates would have risen even more during and after the Great Recession. The majority of people using food assistance programs are in desperate need for nutrients and are trying their best to provide for their