More children in Greece are going hungry, By Liz Alderman, April 17, 2013, New York Times: “As an elementary school principal, Leonidas Nikas is used to seeing children play, laugh and dream about the future. But recently he has seen something altogether different, something he thought was impossible in Greece: children picking through school trash cans for food; needy youngsters asking playmates for leftovers; and an 11-year-old boy, Pantelis Petrakis, bent over with hunger pains. ‘He had eaten almost nothing at home,’ Mr. Nikas said, sitting in his cramped school office near the port of Piraeus, a working-class suburb of Athens, as the sound of a jump rope skittered across the playground. He confronted Pantelis’s parents, who were ashamed and embarrassed but admitted that they had not been able to find work for months. Their savings were gone, and they were living on rations of pasta and ketchup…”
Tag: Child hunger
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
- Study: Food stamps aid children, By Jens Manuel Krogstad, January 22, 2013, Des Moines Register: “An Iowa State University economist hopes a new method to measure how food stamps affect hunger and health will influence Congress this year as lawmakers decide funding for a program used by more than 46 million people. A study using the new technique found that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, reduces hunger among eligible children by at least 20 percent and poor health by at least 35 percent. It also found that food stamps don’t increase obesity rates, and may even decrease them…”
- Report questions food stamps’ nutritional value, Reuters, January 17, 2013, Chicago Tribune: “A report by a panel of experts released on Thursday questioned whether the U.S. government’s food stamp program adequately provides for healthy diets for the more than 47 million low-income people who rely on the benefit. The report by the National Academy of Sciences found that the aid for families to pay for groceries, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, does not factor in many barriers to finding affordable, nutritious food by inner-city shoppers…”
Children and Food Insecurity
- End of school means days of hunger for some local kids, By James Fuller, June 6, 2012, Daily Herald: “‘No more pencils, no more books’ is part of the familiar school’s-out-for-summer chant. But when classrooms close for the summer, so do school cafeterias and their free and reduced lunch and breakfast programs. For thousands of area children, that means a harsh summer lesson about hunger and improper nutrition. A study by Feeding America, a hunger relief charity, shows there are more than 400,000 children in Cook and the collar counties who spend at least some time hungry or not receiving proper nutrition. One in five children in the 13 northern Illinois counties face hunger on a regular basis. Northern Illinois Food Bank officials say that problem becomes more acute in the summer months when school food is not a guaranteed part of a child’s day…”
- Nearly one in five Northland children classified ‘food insecure’, By John Lundy, June 5, 2012, Duluth News Tribune: “One out of every five Douglas County children doesn’t get enough food to support an active, healthy lifestyle, a report released on Monday said. Nationwide, one of every four children is ‘food insecure’ in more than 1,000 counties, said the study by Feeding America, a nonprofit focused on domestic hunger relief. Although the numbers aren’t that dire in the Northland, the study still shows that 18.6 percent of children in Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin are food insecure, according to a news release on Tuesday from Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank. That includes 20.6 percent in Douglas County and 18.2 percent – 6,990 children – in St. Louis County…”
- 1 in 4 children at hunger risk, report says, By Gary Scharrer and Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje, June 5, 2012, San Antonio Express-News: “More than one in four Texas children, or 27.1 percent, were at risk of going hungry in 2010, according to the report released Monday by Feeding America. More than 118,000 Bexar County children, 26.8 percent, live in food insecure households, the report found. Texas lawmakers must involve entire communities to end childhood hunger, said Bee Moorhead of the interfaith group Texas Impact…”