Even though child hunger is a painful reality for millions of children around the world, we can help them by being together.
Children suffer serious hunger hazards throughout the world, from Nigeria to Syria. Those who survive may have permanent consequences such as stunted growth and decreased immunity to infections such as the common cold.
Hunger and food insecurity affect millions of Americans each year. Food poverty at a young age can lead to long-term health problems, especially if hungry families are forced to pick between food and medical care. Everyone benefits when communities have access to healthy, well-balanced diets.
Continue reading to learn more about how hunger and food insecurity affect families across the United States.
The most essential facts regarding child hunger in America are listed below:
Malnutrition
More than 3 million children die from hunger each year, which is a heartbreaking reality. And the number of hungry children is rising as a result of violence, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many feed the hungry organizations with whom you can help the children.
Hunger
A child’s death shocks a community, yet hunger and hunger-related causes claim the lives of 45 percent of children under the age of five.
Finding nutritious food for children every day can be extremely impossible for families suffering poverty, violence, extreme weather events, and displacement.
Starvation
The inevitable spread of hunger that comes with protracted bloodshed falls disproportionately on children. Youngsters in war-torn countries are more than twice as likely to be malnourished as their peers, and children account for 40% of all displaced individuals.
Severe malnutrition every year
It’s a startling figure with far-reaching implications. Young children and newborns rely on their carers for nutrient-dense diets to help them grow, develop, and maintain their immunity. However, healthful foods are often out of reach in low-income or conflict-ridden countries, which results in increased child hunger.
Girls are at more risk of hunger
Women and girls account for more than 60% of the world’s hungry population. Girls are far more likely to be malnourished as a result of inequality, which ranges from early marriage and young motherhood to cultural hurdles and a lack of education.
Extreme poverty
More than 350 million children live in extreme poverty, which means they go hungry every day. When combining the expense of food with the cost of housing, healthcare, and other essential requirements, parents in severe poverty – defined as living on less than $1.90 per day – must make regular, often devastating decisions.
The highest rate of malnutrition
Families across the African continent are among the most affected by food insecurity and child hunger as a result of natural catastrophes, conflict, and poverty. Malnutrition has hampered the growth of 61 million children around the globe, from South Sudan to Ethiopia. Even though Africa has some of the worst rates of childhood hunger, Asia has the biggest number of hungry children.
COVID-19 pandemic
The pandemic continues to drive families into poverty and famine, wreaking havoc on the world’s most vulnerable children. An estimated 370 million children were affected by the effects of hunger when schools in over 199 nations closed, so it is affecting both food and education.
Other quick facts
- In 2017, 40 million individuals in the United States were hungry.
- Hunger is caused by poverty and a lack of financial resources at both the national and local levels in the United States.
- According to the USDA, 45 million Americans rely on food stamps from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Families with children receive 2/3 of these benefits.
- One in every six American children may be unsure where their next meal will come from.
- In America, 22 million children rely on free or reduced-price school lunches, but up to 3 million children are still missing out on the breakfast they require.
- Children who are food insecure are more likely to develop asthma, suffer from anxiety or despair, and do badly in school or physical activities.
- Food insecurity affects 15% of rural families, compared to 11.8 percent in suburban and metropolitan settings.
- People of race have a disproportionately high risk of going hungry. Food insecurity affected 22.5 percent of Black households and 18.5 percent of Latinx/Hispanic households in 2018.
- Mississippi (18.7%), Louisiana (18.3%), Alabama (18.1%), New Mexico (17.6%), Arkansas (17.5%), Kentucky (17.3%), Maine (16.4%), and Oklahoma (16.4%) are the states with the greatest rates of food insecurity in the United States (15.2 percent ).
- Food insecurity was significantly higher in homes with children (15.7 percent) than in households without children in 2017. (10.1 percent ).
