One in ten households in the United States faces food insecurity in a given year, but households with children are at an especially high risk of not having enough to eat. In a recent From the Murphy Center column, I examined broad patterns of food insecurity in the U.S. Today, I will focus on food insecurity among children.
12.5% of U.S. households with children were food insecure at times during 2021, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. In half of these households, children experienced food insecurity directly. 5.0 million kids in the U.S. experienced food insecurity in 2021, meaning that the family didn’t have the resources to acquire food for all members of their household at some point in the year. Even more concerning, 521,000 children were hungry, skipped a meal, or didn’t eat for a whole day because there wasn’t enough money for food in 2021.
The USDA has not released data on food security for 2022 yet. Higher prices for food and almost everything else will likely worsen childhood food insecurity in 2022 and 2023.
The social and economic circumstances of a household determine the food security of children to a large extent. Children are more likely to deal with food insecurity if they live in households where no one is employed full-time. Similarly, children who live with a disabled adult are almost three times more likely to experience food insecurity than children who don’t live with a disabled adult.
Children in households with married parents are more likely to be food secure. Households with only one adult have higher rates of food insecurity. For example, 24.3% of households headed by a single mother experienced food insecurity in 2021, though children only experienced food insecurity directly in half of these homes.
Food insecurity has health consequences for children. Research shows that food insecurity is associated with increased risk of birth defects, lower nutrient intake, anemia, asthma, worse oral health, poorer general health, and a greater risk of being hospitalized. Similarly, food insecurity is correlated with mental health and behavioral problems among children, including cognitive problems, aggression, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation.
Free and reduced cost meals through the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program provide meaningful protection from food insecurity for children who lack economic security at home. Childhood food insecurity tends to spike in summer when these programs are unavailable. Similarly, there was a significant uptick in food insecurity among households with children in the early COVID-19 pandemic. In large part, this was due to disruptions in access to meals provided by schools.
WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) reduces rates of childhood food insecurity, but research is mixed on whether SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) protects children against food insecurity.
WIC, the National School Lunch Program, and the School Breakfast Program should be expanded to protect children from hunger.
Many local nonprofits work to feed those who fall through the cracks or who don’t qualify for aid. For example, Eat’N Together is working to end hunger in Glynn County. The organization’s ultimate goal is to open a “pay what you can” community café in downtown Brunswick. One of their current initiatives is to end “alternative lunch” in our schools—the practice of serving a paltry “alternative lunch” to kids whose meal account balances fall into the negative.
Federal programs and local nonprofits play a role in ending childhood hunger, but these programs don’t address the primary structural cause of food insecurity—poverty. Comprehensive anti-poverty programs and economic development programs are essential to eradicate poverty, which is the root cause of childhood food insecurity in the U.S.
Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is interim chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.
Reg Murphy Center