WHO to recommend improving food aid for malnourished children under 5, Associated Press, October 13, 2011, Washington Post: “The World Health Organization said Thursday it plans to recommend tighter nutritional standards in food aid for young children, a move activists say is necessary to improve donations from countries such as the United States. The new guidelines are likely to make food aid more expensive in the short term, but the improved formulas will be more effective at reducing moderate malnutrition in children under the age of 5, the head of WHO’s nutrition department told The Associated Press…”
Tag: Child hunger
US Food Insecurity
- Study confirms child hunger is a growing problem in rural areas, By Laura Bauer, August 24, 3011, Kansas City Star: “Robert Krogsdale says his six daughters have never missed dinner or gone hungry. But look at what the Bates County, Mo., man and his wife, Reanna, have to do to make that happen: They use food stamps. They buy bread and fruit on sale. They rely on cheap staples like spaghetti. For Christmas, his parents give them packages of beef they use throughout the year. And once a month, the Krogsdales drive 17 miles from their rural home into Butler, Mo. – sometimes in the family’s 12-passenger, 12 miles-per-gallon van – to load up on groceries at a food pantry. ‘I make sure they have their plates and mouths full,’ Krogsdale said of their six daughters, as well as two stepsons who are with the family on the weekends. ‘If it boils down to I don’t eat, it’s real simple.’ Often, when people think of the nation’s hungry kids, the image is of families in urban-core neighborhoods. In rural areas, where farmers harvest crops and ranchers raise livestock, kids do all right – or at least that was the perception of many…”
- Hunger a problem for Southwest Michigan children, new study shows, By Chris Fusciardi, August 26, 2011, Kalamazoo Gazette: “More than one in five children under the age of 18 in Kalamazoo County live in households that are struggling with hunger, according to a new study. The study, ‘Map the Meal Gap: Child Food Insecurity 2011,’ found that 21.5 percent of children in Kalamazoo County are struggling with hunger, a figure that was determined using 2009 U.S. Census data including median family income and childhood poverty rates. The study was released Thursday by the Food Bank of South Central Michigan and the national nonprofit agency Feeding America…”
- Food Bank: 1-in-4 Midland County kids hungry; some West Texas areas much higher, By Kathleen Thurber, August 25, 2011, Midland Reporter-Telegram: “More than one in three children suffer from food insecurity in the 22-county area served by the West Texas Food Bank, according to a report released Thursday. Data released by Feeding America shows 24.8 percent of children in Midland County deal with hunger issues. And while that’s lower than the 34.9 percent of children in the West Texas area who are hungry, it still is above the national average of 23.2 percent, according to the report…”
Report: Hunger and Food Insecurity
- Hunger grips Pa.’s First District, report finds, By Alfred Lubrano, August 12, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “A new report that astonished even experts on hunger shows that half of all households with children in Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District can’t always afford to buy enough food. The district – which includes Kensington, parts of North and South Philadelphia, and Chester – is the second-hungriest place for families in the United States, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the leading antihunger nonprofit in the nation. The report seems to establish Philadelphia as a locus of American poverty. With an overall poverty rate of 25 percent, Philadelphia is the poorest big city (population over one million) in the country. And the FRAC report shows that high levels of hunger are very much a part of life here…”
- Hunger an issue for 25 percent of N.Y. families with kids, By Cara Matthews, August 11, 2011, Ithaca Journal: “Nearly 25 percent of New York households with children reported in 2009 and 2010 that they didn’t always have enough money to buy food, according to a national Food Research and Action Center report released Thursday. The study found that 23.4 percent of families with children nationwide and 23.3 percent in New York said they had experienced food hardship at times during the past 12 months – meaning they at times could not afford food for the adults or children in the household. The rate was 14.6 percent for households without children. New York ranked 29th among all states in the analysis by the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group. It was one of 41 states with rates between 20 percent and 29.9 percent. Three states are 30 percent or higher – Mississippi (32.5 percent), Alabama (32 percent) and Florida (30 percent)…”
- Florida fourth in nation for ‘food hardship,’ group says, By Catherine Whittenburg, August 12, 2011, Tampa Tribune: “Nearly one out of three Florida families, and 27 percent of those in the Tampa-Bay area, are struggling to put enough food on their tables, according to a new study released on Thursday. Florida ranks fourth among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. for the rate at which its families were unable to afford enough food in 2010, according to the Food Research and Action Center, a national nonprofit group that advocates for government policies to end hunger…”