JOHN T. COOK AND DEBORAH A. FRANK
As pediatric researchers and as parents, we know that the cry of a hungry baby and the older child's "Mommy, I'm hungry" signal one of the most compelling of human needs for survival, health and learning -- the need for adequate nutrition. While starvation can be forestalled with marginal food intakes, we know that even subtle deficits in the quantity and quality of food in children's diets affect their health, cognitive development and learning. Sick and hungry children are never "school ready."
In technical terms, pediatric researchers and clinicians are troubled by the increasing number of American children and families afflicted by "food insecurity." That's the inability, because of financial constraints, to consistently obtain food of sufficient quantity or quality for an active and healthy life.
In 2002, the latest year for which data are available, 34.9 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, 21.8 million adults and 13.1 million children. From 1996 to 2002, the proportion of households in Washington without sufficient nutritious food averaged 12.7 percent, among the highest state prevalence rates in the country.
Parents of our young patients tell us that the adequacy of their children's meals varies with monthly pay and benefits cycles. Children get enough to eat at the beginning of the month but two weeks later, after all the household's money is spent on rent, gasoline and utilities, they go hungry or fill their stomachs with nutrient-deficient fillers such as diluted juice, oatmeal made with only water or inexpensive high-fat sweetened foods. In winter, this process is sometimes grimly referred to as "heat or eat."
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/164900_hungerfocus21.html
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