NCLR: Latino Childen are the Hungriest in America

Not to make anyone feel uncomfortable on this festive week, but the season makes talking about hunger a little more poignant, don’t you think?

There’s a thing called food insecurity that measures a family’s access to food in relation to things like money and other resources. It’s really just a way to measure a specific effect of poverty and give it a fancy name. A recent study of food insecurity says that 40 percent of children who live in precarious food circumstances are Latino. In other words, they’re going hungry.

Here’s a part of the study, done by the US Department of Agriculture, that made me take out a pencil and scribble some math on a napkin:

• 85 percent of households in the US were food secure throughout 2009.
• 15 percent suffered food insecurity, meaning that at some point during the year they didn’t have adequate access to  food.
• Of that 15 percent of families that go hungry 40 percent of the children are Latino.

In real numbers the total is staggering. 4.2 million households with children in the United States suffered food insecurity at some point in the year.  And here’s a quote directly from the study: “Rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average among households with children headed by single parents, and among black and Hispanic households.”

The government study has a practical purpose; the numbers are used to calculate and distribute food and plan nutrition assistance programs.  A side effect is that it paints a telling picture.

The National Council of la Raza has done extensive research of its own and found that “Latino children are…the hungriest in America—making up almost 40% of the one million children living in hunger. Ironically, they also have one of the highest risks for obesity; researchers estimate that nearly two-fifths (38.5%) of Latino children ages two to 19 were overweight or obese in 2008.”

Let’s put this in perspective. This is from an article written by Janet Murgia and published in the Huffington Post: “Hispanics are the youngest, fastest-growing population in the nation. One-third of the population is under the age of 18. One out of every five school children across the U.S. is Latino, and that proportion will be nearly one in three by 2030. Undoubtedly, the fate of this country is connected to the future of Latino children.”

So if this made you in any way uncomfortable, I’m sorry. Wake-up calls usually make us feel that way.