Food Insecurity in Households with Children

Food Insecurity in Households with Children PDF Author: Alisha Coleman-Jensen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Food relief
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
An estimated 79 percent of households with children were food secure throughout the year in 2011, meaning that all the household members had consistent access to adequate food for active, healthy lives. The remainder (nearly 21 percent) were food insecure at some time during the year, including 10 percent in which children were food insecure and 1 percent in which one or more children experienced very low food security--the most severe food-insecure condition measured by USDA. In this latter 1 percent of households, caregivers reported that children were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food. A range of studies suggest that children in food-insecure households face higher risks of problematic health and development outcomes than children in otherwise similar food-secure households. The present study shows that in 2010-11, 75 percent of households with food-insecure children had one or more adults in the labor force, including 60 percent with a full-time worker. More than half of households with food-insecure children included an adult with education beyond high school, including 15 percent with an adult who held a 4-year college degree. Federal food and nutrition assistance programs provided benefits to 84 percent of low-income food-insecure households with children in 2010-11.