Hunger

I read the "Little House on the Prairie" series when I was in first grade.  I've reread it many times since and one or two things hover in my mind.
In "The Long Winter" Laura goes to a party where she receives an orange as a party favor.  "Imagine," she thinks in awe, "having an entire orange all to yourself."
I found myself thinking about this the other day when the "kids meal" came and included an obscenely large hot dog and more fries than Dave and I could eat together.  It cost nine dollars and we threw almost all of it away.

We think about food a lot in our house.  Nathan has had so many problems with food and weight gain that we know the calories and nutritional breakdown of a stunning number of foods.  Traveling, even going out to eat, brings up the "what-will-we-feed-him?" anxiety.  Dave's dad's recent brush with the reality of heart disease has thrown our eating habits into sharp relief.  Dave and I have both eaten too much crap and exercised too little since our little man came along.  We worry about eating out and finishing leftovers before they go bad.  Everyone has breakfast even if it makes us a little late for work.  I worry about waste - food bought and uneaten because Nathan didn't like it or we worked late too many nights in a row to cook it all.

All small worries compared to that shared by 1 in 5 American children.

Twenty Percent of American children live in homes where, at least once a week, they run out of food and don't have money to buy more.

Twenty Percent.

That means that in a class of 30 children 6 of them may not have had breakfast and may not be expecting to have dinner.  Six children whose grumbling stomachs will distract them from learning to read and write.  Six who may bully someone else out of their lunch or pick a fight or ditch a class or talk back to a teacher because they just feel so bad.
Some of these children don't have food because their parents have spent the money on cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs, but some of these children don't have food because a parent has lost a job and the cost of keeping a roof over their heads and the heat on is much more than their current income.

Feeding our children is possibly the most basic role of parenthood.  God gave women's bodies the ability to nourish the next generation.  It is believed that one of the many causes of the obesity epidemic in America's children is that parents don't like to tell their children "no" when they ask for food.  The reality in our country, however, is that 20% of our children are mildly malnourished because of the unreliability of their food source.

I don't pretend to know what the answer is.  Nutritious school lunches can help the children.  A declining unemployment rate would help whole families.  A single parent household has twice the likelihood of going hungry so decreasing that prevalence would make a real impact.

I also don't have an agenda.  I just think it is horrifying that this country, that overeats and throws food away and spends so much of our GNP trying to solve the problems of others, can't feed our children.  I think a lot of people don't realize how high the numbers are.
If you want to read more check out the Food Research and Action Center.
And please, think about donating some healthy food to your local food bank.  It is the only safety net that many families have.