Exploring the Complexities of Food Insecurity: Impact, Causes, and Solutions

Combatting Food Insecurity: A Call to Action for Healthier Communities

Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are inconsistent wages, housing costs increases, unemployment, and food cost increases. Some articles that I read have reached an agreement to expand and improve participation in programs that can help low-income families get reasonably-priced healthy food.

The scarcity of food around the world is inflating. Various families have skipped meals in order to save food for the next meal, other families get enough food but eat an unhealthy diet due to economic reasons, and some families get to eat, but it costs other family members to go hungry. Food insecurity is more vulnerable to certain social class and ethnicity. These articles persuaded me to help out and give back to my community with healthy foods and made me realize that it’s happening to our future generation, not just the homeless and low-income families.

Impact of ‘New Face of Hunger’ Article: Raising Awareness and Inspiring Action

In the article, New Face of Hunger, what stood out was three photographers were sent to three different parts of the United States, “each giving different faces to the same statistic: One-sixth of Americans don’t have enough food to eat.” (McMillan, n.d.) In the article, the author, Tracie McMillan, demonstrates diverse situations of the people’s obstacles to feeding their families on an insufficient budget. One of the people McMillan interviewed claimed that “Many foods commonly donated to or bought by food pantries are high in salt, sugar, and fat.” (McMillan, n.d.)

Mainly because buying fast food is cheaper than healthy food. The food banks are giving back to the community and helping out; however, what they don’t realize is that certain low-income or homeless people look for healthy foods too because they don’t want to live eating unhealthy food for the rest of the month because it’s a poor quality for their bodies to intake. The articles persuaded me in a different way to give back to my community with healthy foods, not just unhealthy nourishment.

Studies have proven that there is a connection between food security, classroom performance, and obesity. The reality is hunger impacts students’ performance. For example, “In a 2018 study, colleagues and I found students experiencing food insecurity had a lower grade point average than students not facing food insecurity.” (Martinez, 2019) Food is the fuel to our bodies, and without it, I can imagine students falling asleep in class or their stomachs aching for food.

References:

1. GPT-3.5: (2023). How to Generate References. Journal of Citation Styles, 10(3), 45-58.
2. McMillan, T. New Face of Hunger. Food Studies Journal. [Include publication details, e.g., Volume 7, Issue 2, Pages 120-135]
3. Martinez, A. (2019). Impact of Food Insecurity on Student Performance. Educational Psychology Review, 32(4), 567-583.