Food Insecurities in America

Food Insecurities in the United States

The food security topic continues to gain momentum as food insecurity cases get more severe with time. According to Lee et al. (41), food insecurity refers to the lack of necessary resources to help individuals afford a sustained food supply for their families. People sometimes mistake food insecurity for 'hunger,' but the two are entirely distinct concepts. Hunger refers to the discomfort feeling that one experiences when one fails to eat. With the eternal concerns over food insecurity in the United States, different scholars have embarked on establishing what is causing the problem and comprehending the various dynamics regarding the food insecurity concept. This paper will explore additional resources to help provide a piece of expository information and well-reasoned insights on food insecurity in America.

According to Kolli (30), food insecurity in the United States has registered a slow decline in the past decade. Statistics show that in 2010, the American Department of Agriculture found that an estimated 17.1 million households were food insecure. A 2020 survey established that about 15.7 million American families suffered from food insecurity (Kolli 30). As a result, the United States department of agriculture concludes that 84.2% of households with children under eighteen years can be considered food secure (Lauren 36). That means these households are not at risk of lack of food or likely to experience struggle while obtaining food required to run them throughout the year.

America is among the wealthiest nations in the world, boasting over twenty trillion in GDP. Nonetheless, the government cannot be considered immune to various problems affecting other parts of the world, such as food insecurity. Reports show that one in every nine people in America is at risk of facing the food insecurity threat dangerously hanging over their heads. From an outward view, these statistics may be deemed ironic considering that, over the past decade, America has registered a significant decline in the unemployment rates (Lee et al. 41). However, paying close attention, one can realize that even though many people in America have already secured a job or two, the amount of money they make is not enough to take care of all their needs, including paying for good shelter and food. Raising the pay of those in the military can help them deal with the inflation and continue to provide financial assistance to help them protect their families from becoming food insecure (Shane, 2022). However, this should happen to all civil workers to ensure that everyone is graduated slowly to match the inflation experienced today.

Food insecurity in America can be associated with a myriad of reasons most obvious ones being the unavailability of sufficient finances to ensure that every household has a regular provision of food enough to sustain the family. Most food-insecure in America work in jobs that do not pay much money, making it hard to run their lives comfortably. Additionally, it has become a culture in America that one has to work in more than one job to sustain their lives since they cannot take care of all their day-to-day expenditures with one income source, which they make seven to fifteen dollars per hour (Lee et al. 41). Therefore, it has become tough to survive in America because people have many bills to pay to sustain their families.

According to Gregory (705), the issue of food insecurity in America is primarily associated with ignorance from food security victims. Gregory (689) argues that Americans facing food insecurity should emulate unemployed individuals who are not food insecure. That means they should consider using the money they receive to make themselves stable and prepare when the relief food money is finished by purchasing crops and engaging in small-scale farming on their farms (Lauren 36). Farming is an excellent way to ensure that a family can have a continuous food supply without necessarily spending much on buying food and to help supplement government relief. Unfortunately, Americans fail to exercise such safe and convenient methods to prevent food insecurity due to a lack of knowledge. They are limited to no time to engage in that kind of practice since they have to work in highly demanding jobs (Freudenberg 58). Additionally, food-insecure families tend to engage in expenditures similar to well-off families. Inability to live within one's means or below their means makes it hard for the affected people to protect themselves from food insecurity successfully.

In the United States, individuals who suffer from food insecurity are victims of misplaced priorities, either from the government or themselves. Chilton et al. (11) consistently, the government has portrayed a lack of focus and commitment to supporting the agricultural sector responsible for supplying millions of Americans with food. Additionally, the government has subsidized the production of various commodities like soybeans and corn. The amount of investment pumped into the subsidization of these crops, among others, is so huge in a way that producing from Iowa alone requires one-sixth of the available grains from the country's reserves (Hossfeld). The unfortunate thing is that the government makes such investments at the expense of other parts of the diet that comprise a balanced diet, such as fruits and vegetables.

United States' government failures and misplacement of priorities are evidenced by the prices of vegetables today compared to other products such as sweetened drinks and beverages (Chilton et al. 11). Unfortunately, sweetened beverages are not part of balanced diets, yet they are cheaper than other essential food products. The government pushes for proper feeding habits to avoid malnutrition cases, and instead of investing in that, more money is set aside to take care of cereals from which softened drinks come (Ward 400). Therefore, many families find it hard to afford basic foodstuffs and supplement their diets which add necessary nutritional supplements since they are expensive to buy.

Ironically, food insecurity is directly associated with obesity, making one wonder how possible it is that an individual who collects food stamps can be described as food insecure. In most cases, the appearance these individuals give as a first impression makes it impossible to believe they could be in their situation. As Niles et al. (nzab135) explain, this dynamic is essentially a result of engaging in poor eating habits caused by an inability to afford better food. Americans who are food insecure can only afford cheap, unhealthy fast foods since they do not have enough money to afford food with vital components of a proper clean diet. Moreover, these fast foods are very addictive, which makes those who eat them find it hard stopping resulting in huge unhealthy bodies altering their general appearance.

Obesity results from food insecurity or poor dietary management skills, or both. Unfortunately, most people continue to feed on unhealthy diets even when they receive aid from government subsidies; they prefer buying cheaper food by exploring readily available options (Gundersen 18). Even though any household is likely to face food insecurity, particular groups are at a higher risk than others. According to Niles et al. (nzab135), the number one group at risk of insecurity is households with a low income to poverty ratio. Secondly, single female parents with children have a high likelihood of facing food insecurity. Lastly, single men with children follow in the group of people likely to have food crises.

Many organizations are working around the clock to alleviate the impact of food insecurity on such households in America. The Food and Nutrition Magazine (2013) claims that over 200 food banks throughout the United States operate in coordination with other agencies like kitchens and after-school programs in servicing needy people annually. Meals On Wheels differs from other programs because it ensures senior citizens primarily rely on food delivered to their homes. Despite that different organizations focus on varied groups, their overall objective is to fight the problem of food insecurity in the United States.

In conclusion, food insecurity in the United States should not be regarded as an illusion as some individuals deem it. Instead, it should be taken with the seriousness it deserves since it is a reality that millions of families have to deal with daily. Unfortunately, a country like America has more food insecure people despite its position as a world superpower than other nations in the European countries. Therefore, food insecurity in the United States should not be considered a problem that individuals who are food insecure should find ways to solve; instead, it requires a collective responsibility to be solved entirely. 

Works cited

Chilton, Mariana, and Donald Rose. "A Rights-Based Approach to Food Insecurity in the United States." American Journal of Public Health (1971), vol. 99, no. 7, Am Public Health Assoc, 2009, pp. 1203–11, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2007.130229.

Freudenberg, Nicholas, et al. "College Students and SNAP: The New Face of Food Insecurity in the United States." American Journal of Public Health (1971), vol. 109, no. 12, 2019, pp. 1652–58, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305332.

Gundersen, Craig, et al. "The Determinants of Food Insecurity Among Food Bank Clients in the United States." The Journal of Consumer Affairs, vol. 51, no. 3, Wiley Periodicals, Inc, 2017, pp. 501–18, https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12157.

Gregory, Christian A., and Alisha Coleman‐Jensen. "Do High Food Prices Increase Food Insecurity in the United States?" Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, vol. 35, no. 4, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 679–707, https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppt024.

Hossfeld, Leslie H., et al. Food and Poverty : Food Insecurity and Food Sovereignty Among America's Poor. Vanderbilt University Press, 2018.

Kolli, Ajay, et al. "Vision Impairment, Poor Diet, and Food Insecurity in the United States." Current Developments in Nutrition, vol. 5, no. Supplement_2, Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 30–30, https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzab033_030.

Lauren, Brianna N., et al. "Predictors of Households at Risk for Food Insecurity in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic." Public Health Nutrition, vol. 24, no. 12, Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. 3929–36, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980021000355.

Lee, Barrett, and Adam Lippert. "Food Insecurity Among Homeless and Precariously Housed Children in the United States: Lessons from the Past." Demographic Research, vol. 45, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften, 2021, pp. 1115–48, https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2021.45.37.

Niles, Meredith T., et al. "A Multi-Site Analysis of the Prevalence of Food Insecurity in the United States, before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic." Current Developments in Nutrition, vol. 5, no. 12, Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. nzab135–nzab135, https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzab135.

Shane, L., 2022. Yahoo is part of the Yahoo family of brands. [online] News.yahoo.com. Available at: <https://news.yahoo.com/food-insecurity-stipend-help-many-194729214.html> [Accessed 10 April 2022].

Ward, Carley, et al. "Attitudes Toward Food Insecurity in the United States." Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, vol. 18, no. 1, Wiley Subscription Services, Inc, 2018, pp. 400–24, https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12168.