Food insecurity is one of those invisible disabilities whose impacts we tend to underestimate. One social worker said, “I often encounter a child who looks like a healthy one-year-old, just to find out it’s a two-year-old whose growth has been stunted by food insecurity.” At the other end of the spectrum, there’s an epidemic of childhood obesity. In 2019, UNICEF found that nearly two in three children were either undernourished or overweight. The pandemic has made things worse. The impacts of food insecurity can linger in poor physical and mental health as well as in poor choices and habits. It can be a lifelong burden.
During my last trip to Europe, a man who grew up in Cuba was in my traveling party. At night, he would raid the refrigerator at our B&B, eating food planned to be served the next day. He was embarrassed and tried to hide his behavior, but he couldn’t stop himself. He perhaps also suffered from bulimia, since he was rail-thin.
There are treatments and ways of healing for those with eating disorders. But what can be done to heal the millions who experience day-to-day food insecurity?
Start Early
Conventional advice is to encourage conversations about food and to be a good role model as a parent (for instance, this advice from Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics). But many of these recommendations are pedantic and hard to implement. A gentler approach is taken by the elder stateswoman of enlightened eating, Alice Waters. Starting in 1996, her foundation revolutionized school lunches the way she had previously revolutionized restaurant fare. Now, she has embarked on an even more ambitious plan to put gardens and food at the heart of every school. The Edible Schoolyard manifesto is here.
School Lunches
Since its inception, the USDA school lunch program has been tied to farmer subsidies, resulting in tons of surplus commodity foods like cheese, potatoes, and processed grains going to students. The shelf-stable foodstuffs have not only given the nation’s schoolchildren an unbalanced menu but have also caused them to prefer salty, doughy, processed fare. Untying school lunches from farm subsidies doesn’t really solve the larger problem of farmers being paid to grow massive commodity crops, whether they need the subsidies or not, whether they grow sustainably or not. That is the subject for a future Deep Dive.
One of the many lessons that the pandemic taught us is that funneling food relief and nutrition programs through schools is not enough. We need direct channels to mothers to augment the school programs, returning food sovereignty to them.
An Appetite for Action
“There’s been a huge change in the language and the desire to end childhood hunger. . . and the increase in funding is at a scale we haven’t seen probably in 50 years,” said Noreen Springstead, the executive director of WhyHunger, an organization that works to end hunger. Let’s hope so. There are some promising signs: the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is being expanded. The 1960s-era food stamp program, which evolved into SNAP, is also being expanded.
Governmental programs and feeding kids at school are not enough. Food pantries are not enough. Food relief programs, faith-based feeding, oases in food deserts; all these are not enough, argues Lisa Held in Civil Eats. A sweeping Child Nutrition Reauthorization is gearing up that will update and reimagine how U.S. children are supported through food. What will finally be enough, people are realizing, is nothing short than a holistic approach that examines all issues that impact children’s ability to thrive. This includes fair wages for parents, child tax credits, and childcare subsidies, access to health care and insurance, transportation, and safe, affordable places to live.
ARS.gov Scott Bauer photo
Update: Slow and Small Solutions
In early February, the USDA finally took some baby steps towards better nutrition for children in schools. As of mid-year, 80 percent of grains served will need to be at least 50 percent whole grains. That adds up to an increase in whole grains by one-third.
Beginning next year, sodium must be reduced by 10 percent. These requirements fall short of the 10-year-old rules set by the Obama Administration, but are an improvement over the relaxed rules of the Trump Administration, which favored food manufacturers.
The School Nutrition Association is also happy about the baby steps, citing the difficulty of getting enough food of any kind on the tray during pandemic-caused supply chain disruptions. Meanwhile states are stepping into the picture. For instance, Colorado's Department of Agriculture is paving the way for small and urban growers to sell their produce directly to schools.
Reporting on federal changes by The Counter. Colorado's Farm to Child survey is here.
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