What It Means to Go Hungry - Finally a thoughtful article on this issue.

[yellowcanine]

From Time Magazine

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1562605,00.html

To get the context, the whole article should be read, but these two paragraphs capture the gist of it.

The shift in terminology, which inspired such a furor, came about as bureaucratic translations so often do: slowly, earnestly, and all but blindly when it came to the larger meaning. "It seems that 'hungry' means different things to different people," explains Mark Nord, one of the principal authors of the USDA report. Some anti-hunger activists said that any household that had to struggle to keep food on the table should be classified as hungry; others countered that this diminished the power of the term, and that it should refer only to the more severe cases. So about three years ago the Agriculture Department asked experts at the National Academies of Science to weigh in, and their committee agreed that "hunger" should be reserved for cases when persistent food insecurity results in "prolonged, involuntary lack of food," and the result is "discomfort, illness, weakness or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation."

But that pain was not what the USDA was measuring — researchers were not going out and interviewing poor or homeless people about how they felt when they'd gone for a day without eating. What they could quantify was exactly how often people said that "We worried whether our food would run out before we got money to buy more," and how often they had cut the size of meals or skip them all together. As a result, we now get a study that paints an even more scientifically accurate portrait of an even more deeply divided country. The Dow is as plump as its ever been, and 4 million families skip meals because they sometimes have no choice.

What this demonstrates above all is how difficult it is to translate scientific research results into something the public can get a firm grasp on. Obviously it is important to quantify the hunger problem as much as is possible in order to know how to best address it and to determine whether things are getting worse or better as a result of specific government programs (food stamps, for example). But it is also important to be able to talk about the issue in language that people can identify with. If the mainstream media would do its job, maybe that would happen? So far as I can tell, so far not one news organization has actually gone out and interviewed any people who might be hungry in the United States as a result of this USDA report. Wouldn't that be the obvious place to start?

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Gee, I wonder what the NAS would call 'starvation'. Or mal-nourishment.

[yellowcanine]

2. You are missing the forest for the trees. The problem is not what we call it.

It is how we measure hunger and what if anything we can do about it. In order to do that we have to have yardsticks.

[Mnemosyne]

3. I know too many people that are eating

one meal a day and more things that are cheaper like hot dogs, soup, etc. A good friend of mine has early Type 2 diabetes and should eat regularly, but she cannot do it very well. They won't qualify for food stamps to help either. Her and hubby, another dear friend and a Vietnam veteran, both are disabled.


I am fairly destitute, myself, keeping up my home alone and being disabled. I get some help, for which I am deeply grateful, but things still are quite tight. I've had some money at times and I've been dirt poor (more poor than secure), but being poor was much easier back in the 70's and 80's, even the 1990's weren't too bad just moderately poor.

We basically help each other through caring and sharing what we can. :)

And I am extremely low maintenance, few needs, fewer wants. If someone as careful financially as I have had to be most of my life is having a hard time, it is going to get seriously bad here before it gets any better.

I always try to lean toward realistic optimist. :evilgrin:

Words really do not matter, if someone cannot eat a healthy diet, fairly affordable, than they have or will develop illnesses more easily, thus costing more in help from consumers/taxpayers later. I haven't found any farmer's markets that take food stamps in this area.

But then I think of those souls in Darfur, of Haiti, Calcutta and remember that it can be beyond worse. I learn to be more grateful each day somehow. :)

[yellowcanine]

4. I wish that Time and the Washington Post would be interviewing people like you and

your friends instead of focusing on whether we should use the term "food insecurity" or "hunger". Both words have meaning and should be part of the discussion. But they should not BE the discussion. The discussion should be the extent of the problem and what could be done about it. Somehow no one in the main stream media seems to think THAT story needs to be told.

How many people can't afford nutritious food all the time? And WHY can't they?

Do programs like food stamps help?

Are all of the people who need help getting it and why not? Is the help sufficient?

What could we do differently? What do other countries do that we don't?