Photo from Flickr/StevenBrisson. Creative Commons.
“Hunger in America is complicated. It’s not just getting enough food, but getting the right food — and making the right choices.”
That’s the premise of a two-part NPR story on hunger and poverty in America. The author spends time with the Williamsons, a Pennsylvania family of five who live below the poverty line. As they exhibit, hunger not a simple issue. The Williamsons’ 8-year-old son, for example, looks chubby, but the calories he consumes are not nutritious. Why? Because those empty, nutrition-scarce calories (i.e., junk food) are cheaper than healthier foods.
“You can get leaner cuts of meat, but then they’re more expensive,” [Connie Williamson] says. “You can get fresh fruit every couple of days and blow half of your budget on fresh fruits and vegetables in a week’s time, easy.”
But, you argue, wouldn’t a garden with fresh vegetables solve everything? The Williamsons live in an apartment complex, and yet they still do find a place for a small garden. But a garden doesn’t balance out the cheap, sugary snacks and drinks available to kids.
All of this is part of a larger trend of food insecurity, especially among children. The number of children living in households where getting enough food to eat was a challenge hit a staggering 17 million in 2008, a more than 30 percent jump, year-over-year, according to NPR.
So what are the poor in America to do? Should they refrain from buying the empty calories, even though that’s what is available in their price range? Should kids be learning better eating habits at school as well as at home? Or have healthy, whole foods become a status symbol, only available to those who live in the right areas and with enough money?
It's hard to combat the poor habits—sugar makes us feel good, initially, and there's just something alluring about carbonation. But we can, as communities and as local governments, sponsor & support community gardens. Likewise, we can require education beginning in pre-school on wise choices and require nutrition education (and the consequences of malnutrition) from grade school on. And then make it "sexy" (in the advertising sense) by PSAs showing hip/happy kids making good food choices. And all that would just be a beginning. It's daunting.
Under all circumstances it is difficult to keep children on a healthy diet. I try not to limit what my kids eat, but to only have healthy choices at home. We should be able to depend on our schools to take out the white stuff and only feed children healthy meals, but that is just not the case. It shouldn't be a choice at school, healthy should be the rule. I don't think that healthy whole foods are a status symbol, I think that when kids eat healthy it is thought of as freakish. There isn't enough information given to children about what they eat. It is difficult to convince someone who has always eaten from boxes that there is a better way. It is very complicated.