Final Draft Essays

Submitted By 1joshhernandez1
Words: 1348
Pages: 6

Child Hunger in America Devourers In America, over sixteen million children live in households without consistent access to adequate food. That's one out of five kids! I have never seen that many children facing miserable lives in America just by the cause of hunger and what most would say are unbelievable but unfortunately it’s true. NoKidHungry states that there are about twenty two percent of kids under the age of eighteen who live in poverty in America and over three million numbers of low-income children who receive free meals in the summer when school is out of session and free and reduced-price school meals aren’t available. See, now when I was in elementary school, I used to live in Amarillo, Texas in a very decent neighborhood but at the same time there were poverty issues occurring and in some areas I had noticed that there were children of my age and lower that seemed as if they have not eaten in a few days and I was fortunate enough to have all the necessities I needed as of today but now things sure have changed the past few years and child hunger still lingers around and literally hungers for more to encounter. The cause of child hunger is not the scarcity of food. There is actually more than enough food to feed everyone it is just the lack of infrastructure to have it delivered. The interstate highways and the trucking industry are ready to move loads of food each day to wherever it needs to be delivered. The shelves of a supermarket are stocked to the owners consent but none of that matters if the customers have no money in their pocket. That is where poverty takes its place in the making.
The article “Causes of Hunger in the U.S” states the following: “Around the world, wherever poverty exists hunger is sure to exist as well (Causes of Hunger in the U.S).” And even the government around the world has considered both inseparable. A new system called The Millennium Development Goals was introduced to put reducing hunger and poverty all together on top of the list. Besides reducing hunger and poverty by half, the MDG’s include the improving of maternal and child health, slowing spread of viral diseases, as well as achieving a universal primary education. It applies to all the countries and not just the less developed. Normally situations like this fall to where people in a state or community want to make a change by doing whatever it takes to reduce child hunger by even a percent or possibly more and that usually comes through dedication. Its bad enough that they are lacking food to eat but now after not eating for a certain amount of time they will not have enough nutrition they need to help maintain their body strength and that is what makes them weak and helpless. Kimberly Brown states that: “The consequences of malnutrition can be severe. Several studies have shown that food insecurity affects cognitive development among young children. Additional research shows that with hunger comes more frequent sickness and higher healthcare costs (Shocking need: American Kids Go Hungry. August 24, 2011).” With that being said, being malnutrition can lead to sickness, which involves going to hospitals for treatments but that only adds more to your plate which is already full due to poverty and food insecurity. America, in many communities, have considered creating programs that would help support children as well as families to provide them food supplements to women who are pregnant and to those with children under five years old whose income is less than 185 percent of the poverty limit. Jean Daniel states: “In fact, a shocking 49 percent of all babies born in the United States are born to families receiving food supplements from the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program (Shocking Need: American Kids Go Hungry. August 24, 2011).” This new program has obviously shown some progress throughout the country and has given brand new opportunities to the poor to handle situations more professionally than before.