Introduction: In a world where children are considered the key to the future, why are they facing the hardship of food insecurity? Many people are reluctant to believe the reality that these children suffer day to day, but it is a reality. So, what happens to these children who live in food insecure homes? They begin to develop physical, emotional, and mental problems which then later affects their academics and social life. This research project has given me the chance to explore these topics from different aspects, which enabled me to understand the issue of child hunger at a larger scale. In “Childhood Food Insecurity in the U.S.: Trends, Causes, and Policy Options”, by Craig Gundersen and James P. Ziliak, they inform readers on the causes
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The authors work to form a relationship between these causes and how they impact food insecurity among children. Both Gundersen and Zaliak indicate that there are four themes other than income that contribute to child hunger. The first factor being the adult caregivers’ mental and physical health and how they play a significant role in child food insecurity. An example that was given was from Neeraj Kaushal and colleagues, who used data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (a survey based at Princeton University that has followed 5,000 children born between 1998 and 2000 in 20 major metropolitan areas, mostly to unmarried mothers) (4). They found that mothers in food-secure poor households are in better physical and mental health and are less likely to report intimate-partner violence and substance use compared with mothers in food-insecure poor household (4). The second factor being the household head’s marital status. Kelly Balistreri finds in the new research on child food insecurity that, children living with a single parent or living with an unmarried parent is a more complex family have a greater risk of food insecurity than do children living in families where the parents are married (6). The third factor being child-care arrangement affects food insecurity status. It is stated that threequarters of children spend some portion of their preschool years under the care of people other than their parents (6). The authors compared five types of child-care arrangement: care by parents exclusively; by a relative; by someone unrelated to the child in a home-care setting; in a child-care center; and in Head Start (6). They found that, compared with children cared for exclusively by their parents, low-income preschoolers attending a child-care center had lower odds of both food insecurity in general and very low food security; children cared for by a relative were
The authors work to form a relationship between these causes and how they impact food insecurity among children. Both Gundersen and Zaliak indicate that there are four themes other than income that contribute to child hunger. The first factor being the adult caregivers’ mental and physical health and how they play a significant role in child food insecurity. An example that was given was from Neeraj Kaushal and colleagues, who used data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (a survey based at Princeton University that has followed 5,000 children born between 1998 and 2000 in 20 major metropolitan areas, mostly to unmarried mothers) (4). They found that mothers in food-secure poor households are in better physical and mental health and are less likely to report intimate-partner violence and substance use compared with mothers in food-insecure poor household (4). The second factor being the household head’s marital status. Kelly Balistreri finds in the new research on child food insecurity that, children living with a single parent or living with an unmarried parent is a more complex family have a greater risk of food insecurity than do children living in families where the parents are married (6). The third factor being child-care arrangement affects food insecurity status. It is stated that threequarters of children spend some portion of their preschool years under the care of people other than their parents (6). The authors compared five types of child-care arrangement: care by parents exclusively; by a relative; by someone unrelated to the child in a home-care setting; in a child-care center; and in Head Start (6). They found that, compared with children cared for exclusively by their parents, low-income preschoolers attending a child-care center had lower odds of both food insecurity in general and very low food security; children cared for by a relative were