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Guest writer: Food for thought
5/20/13 8:52 AM
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Arkansas Daily Deal
Monday, May 20, 2013, 8:56 a.m.
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Food for thought
Work together to fight hunger
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By JOHN BROWN SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
This article was published May 17, 2013 at 4:36 a.m.
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Fifty million people in the U.S., and one in four children, don’t know where their next meal is
coming from, despite our country having the means to provide nutritious, affordable food for all
Americans.
Last fall at the Conference of Southwest Foundations’ Annual meeting, my colleagues and I
watched clips from A Place at the Table. This documentary examines the many issues hunger
causes, and gives us insight into what life is like for the millions of people in America who suffer
from hunger. Most of these people were working but they just did not make enough money to put
food on the table for the entire month. Many of them did not qualify for food stamps or bridge
cards.
We all left the conference with a new perspective and appreciation of the gravity of the hunger
problem in America. It was a wake-up call for all of us.
The Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance estimates that tonight over 560,000of our fellow Arkansans will
go to bed with an empty, gnawing ache in their bellies. One in six of our neighbors cannot put food
on the table tonight for their family. It isn’t because we don’t have enough food. The cause is
poverty.
Nineteen percent of Arkansans live below the poverty line and often don’t have the money to buy
milk and bread, according to the 2011 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. Out
of the millions of Americans who are food-insecure, a lot of them are right here in the Natural
State. The USDA ranks us at the top in the nation for the number of food-insecure households.
The fact is that hunger poses a serious economic, social and cultural threat to our communities in
Arkansas and to our nation. According to a 2011 report by the Center for American Progress and
Brandeis University, “hunger costs our nation at least $167.5 billion due to the combination of lost
economic productivity per year, more expensive public education because of the rising costs of
poor education outcomes, avoidable health-care costs, and the cost of charity to keep families
fed.”
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The effects of hunger on children’s health and educational achievement are especially alarming.
Research conducted by Children’s Health-Watch and reported on by Feeding America shows that
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food-insecure children are 90 percent more likely than kids from food-secure homes to have their
overall health reported as “fair/poor” rather than “excellent/ good.” A 2012 survey of public
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/may/17/food-thought-20130517/
Page 1 of 4
Guest writer: Food for thought
5/20/13 8:52 AM
school teachers by Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign shows hungry students struggle
with poor academic performance, behavior problems and health issues.
The good news is that the problem can be solved if we, as Americans, agree that making healthy
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food available and affordable is in the best interest of us all.
I recently toured the Arkansas Foodbank with a group of grant makers from private foundations
across the Southwest. The reason for our visit was to gain insight into how the agency is addressing
hunger through collaboration.
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The food bank is a member of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, a statewide alliance focused on
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business, community and foundation supporters provides over 20 million pounds of food annually to
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help feed people in need.
The 240 members of the Conference of Southwest Foundations, representing seven states, are
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Collaboration has helped the alliance make great strides in the fight against hunger and is
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something we see as the key to wiping out food insecurity.
A lot of people think that it’s up to government to fix the big problems, but the fact is, to battle
something as monumental as hunger takes every single one of us. Philanthropic and government
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assistance are just part of the solution. The rest is knowledge, time and money-and a commitment
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by every one of us to work together to end hunger for children and families in states like Arkansas.
———◊———
SHOPPING
Former state Sen. John Brown is president of the Windgate Charitable Foundation.
Arkansas Daily Deal
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Guest writer: Food for thought
5/20/13 8:52 AM
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Comment on: Food for thought
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Educator says...
May 17, 2013 at 12:46 p.m.
I am very skeptical of the numbers used in this column. Comments like "one in four children do not
know where their next meal is coming from" and "tonight over 560,000 of our fellow Arkansans will
go to bed with an empty, gnawing ache in their bellies" should be met meet with skepticism,
espcially since the author provided no sources for these numbers. Sources are needed so that a
skeptical reader can find out for himself/herself if there is truth in the column. Citing a study by
the American Center for Progress does not add to the column's credibility since this organization is
highly biased towards specific causes. What is needed is unbiased studies to determine actual
hunger statistics, including a definition of hunger.
As a research scientist, I am always skeptical of so-called facts by either right or left causes. For
example, the 90% of Americans support some sort of gun control is often used in media. This sounds
highly dubious to me. Just getting 90% of the people to agree on anything should be thoroughly
vetted. Yet, when one studies how this number was obtained (a very small sample size from 6
states in the northeastern U.S. that all voted for President Obama) you will see that it was a highly
biased survey and statistically not valid to apply to the whole U.S. Therefore, anyone who uses this
number based on this survey looses credibility. In this day of great hyberbole, one needs to apply
critical thinking to any "reported facts" and make their own decisions.
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Guest writer: Food for thought
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