“The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger.” – Sholom Aleichem

Does the US Really Have a Hunger Crisis?

If you google “hunger in the US,” you’ll get a plethora of articles about something called food insecurity, but little to nothing about what that means. You can deduce, however, from its use in context, that “food insecurity” means answering “yes” to either one of the following questions:

* When shopping for food, can you buy everything you want or do you have to budget?

* Do you ever experience hunger during the day or before you go to sleep?

But anyone with a high school level education in what we used to call Home Economics can tell you that budgeting is a fiscally healthy thing to do. And anyone with a rudimentary understanding of nutrition can tell you that being hungry several times a day is a good thing too.

The food insecurity warriors don’t agree. They want to live in a world where everyone has all the money they need to buy all the food they want and where everyone can, if they wish, extinguish pangs of hunger by consuming calories the moment the feeling arises.

But wouldn’t that lead to overeating and obesity?

It does. And it has very little to do with income.

Here are some facts: 

According to a recent report by the United Health Foundation, nearly 4 out of 10 (39%) low-income Americans are obese. (“Low-income” is defined as people with an income below $25,000.)

That’s about three times greater than the average obesity rate for people worldwide. A recent study of 19.2 million people published in Lancet found that only about 13% of people worldwide (10.8% of men and 14.9% of women) are obese. Another study put the figure at 11%.

But guess what? The numbers for higher-income Americans are almost as upsetting:

* In the $25,000 to $49,999 income bracket, 35.6% are obese.

* In the $50,000 to $74,999 bracket, 33.7% are obese.

* In the $75,000 or more bracket, 29.6% are obese.

So, Americans are fat. Big deal. We all know that.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have a food-related crisis of some sort.

The real problem 

Worldwide, according to UNICEF, undernourishment is responsible for more sickness and infirmity than any other cause. And by “undernourishment,” they mean “not having enough caloric intake to meet the minimum energy requirements necessary for good health.”

I checked WHO data and found, as I had suspected, that all the serious cases of undernourishment (20% of the population) exist exclusively in parts of Africa, India, and Indonesia.

Some Eastern European countries are in the 5% to 10% range. And interestingly, less than 5% of China’s population suffers from undernourishment.

What about the United States? The percentage is so low – so far below 1% – that it is effectively zero.

So, no, the US doesn’t have a problem with having enough to eat. Virtually 100% of our population has daily access to the calories needed to sustain a healthy life.

But we do have a problem – a very serious problem – with eating too much.

We are a country of fatties. A country of overeaters… in every income bracket.

Which brings me back to Biden’s campaign to address our so-called “hunger crisis” by rushing more food assistance to low-income people.

It includes:

* increasing food stamps by more than $1 billion a month

* providing needy children a dollar a day for snacks

* authorizing the largest children’s summer feeding program in history

This has nothing to do with health. If it did, it would be about education and setting incentives to encourage healthier eating. Instead, it will almost certainly increase the number of low-income people that will die too early from obesity and obesity-related illnesses.