Essay On Hunger In America

1610 Words7 Pages

As children, we were all told at one time or another, “Finish your dinner. There are starving kids in Africa that would love to have that food.” When we picture the faces of hunger, we tend to think of children in Ethiopia hundreds of miles away. But what about the starving children in America? In the last few decades, hunger has taken on a new face. New names for hunger such as “low food security” have been created to attempt to distance ourselves from the ever growing problem in our own country. It is important that Americans fight low food security in America because modern agriculture places much more strain on the land, low food security has been known to lead to obesity, and there is an increased importance of national aid. The American population is rising. Each day our population …show more content…

Hunger in America has changed. It is no longer the long lines for soup and bread that the nation saw during the Great Depression. The face of hunger has become so common in a crowd, that it has become increasingly hard to spot. Sixty percent of all food insecure families have at least one working parent. It is not uncommon for the working class to be in line for food stamps. As wages have remained steady, inflation has driven prices much higher than can be afforded ( McMillan 73). In the past 35 years, the number of people relying on emergency food programs, such as food stamps, has skyrocketed. In 1980, only a few hundred people relied on these programs. Now, that number has climbed to over 50,000 (McMillan 4). Of that number, one third were under the age of 18 (“Hunger is” 22). In 2013, 49.1 million people were considered food insecure (“Hunger and Poverty” par.3). However, of those people only 62 percent sought out assistance from government programs (“Hunger and Poverty” par. 4). This means that 38 percent of the people that need help are not getting

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