Every person feels hungry at least once in a life, for instance, when he or she is too busy to eat something. Hunger is a personal struggling, a result of a lack of food, which always has been existing in various scales. Paradoxically, hunger exists today, in a high-tech developed abundant society. Hunger affects different people from different countries all over the world, it courses many health issues, mostly irreversibly. Besides, the worst part of it is a food access discrimination: children principally suffer the most. Food security, a possibility of close access to healthy food, is an extremely important aspect of every life which should be a goal and occasion in action for government, especially in a relationship to most affected people in the United States: kids.
Defining terms on a government level is a starting point in solving national food problem. Patricia Allen, chair of the Department of Food Systems, published an essay “The Disappearance of Hunger if America”. The essay is about changes of terms in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) which decided to eliminate the word hunger into the term “very low food security” (224). Definitely, eliminating the word hunger doesn’t solve a problem, nevertheless, it is made by the trustworthy government which public has chosen. No one can resist this definition just because people, who criticizes government’s decision, are not as qualified as scientists who work with hunger statistics and define related terms. Thus, usual people are not supposed to say that they are hungry, government have already defined that they are not: they are just insecure with food quality and access. After all, what should be with children, mostly suffering fraction? According to Allen, “far more children than adults are food insecure” (229). Therefore, children, extremely unprotected population with delicate growing organism, are most vulnerable: that’s why malnutrition and durable hunger easily course indisposition and diverse health issues such as delayed growth, bad concentration, weak memory and thinking. Clearly, kids form the future of our society, they are the foundation of the next generation, so it is highly important to provide healthy and nutritious food for them.
In the modern world not only individual people can have hunger (or food insecurity), but also whole cities can struggle with lack of food. This problem has a term “food desert”. According to Jennifer Wehunt’s essay “The Food Desert”, the definition of it is as follows: “a concentrated area short on access to fresh meat and produce” (216). In addition, Wehunt explains that food deserts have plenty of harmful fast-food outlets with quicker access to them. The greatest part of this problem is, again, that “nearly one-third of … food-desert residents are children’ (218). These poor kids have greater probability to get diabetes, obesity, heart diseases, and even cancer. Children are more food insecure than adults: they (children) cannot make money, cook, get to the grocery store, and choose healthier products. Actually, it happens unless they are taught to shop wisely, cook simple but beneficial dishes, and keep nutritious diet. As Wehunt cites one Baptist pastor, “if you don’t know how to wisely shop and wisely eat, you’re still going to be battling yourself, no matter what grocery store is in town” (222).
Some people get luck in meeting helpful people and getting useful knowledge from childhood, some don’t. Without a doubt, the second part of people lose their health year after year. Subsequently, it happens until people gain knowledge or die. Maybe it is exaggerated, but the point is that nutrition knowledge should be studying as early as possible (from childhood). For example of a lucky man, who realized the importance of food, being a teenager, David Zinczenko “grew up as a typical mid-1980’s latchkey kid” (3). In his work “Don’t Blame the Eater”, Zinczenko recalls that he got an obesity while he was eating, like a majority of American kids, in unhelpful fast-food restrains such as McDonald’s, KFC, and Taco Bell. Thus, he did not have an easy access to grocery stores and did not even know that food affects his well-being; clearly, it meant no healthy food choices for growing kid. Zinczenko writes that then, in college years, he changed his mind completely and joined one health magazine. Absolutely, the author got rescued from a “lifetime obesity”, which also points out that some serious diseases originate from unbalanced nutrition in people’s childhood (Zinczenko). Additionally, Zinczenko confirms that “teenagers who live … on a fast-food diet won’t turn their lives around” (4). Hopefully, one day, these people will grasp the importance of good food access at any time, and they will teach their kids more nutritious diet than they had in childhood.
First of all, food is a fundamental need and inalienable human right, so people don’t have to make it so complicated subject to scientific work. According to Allen, in reality, “by the time hunger is clinically detectable, the damage may be irreversible.” It means that medical men don’t have to spend a lot of time determining hungry state. The only one way to help to grow a healthy young generation is not considering right definitions, but acting. Particularly, the most practical decision government should realize is increasing a number of healthy grocery stores, especially in such areas as food deserts. It can be done by changing taxes there, giving more benefits to businesses which attempt to get better access to qualitative food for suffering cities and, particularly, for growing generation. Eventually, these young people will give back more to the city and country where they were grown and taken care of. Moreover, people should remember that everyone impacts and forms the government by voting, electing an appropriate person who is going to give an attention to the problem of children’s hunger. Finally, the most important action, which not only government, but also every person can do, is studying and teaching nutritious aspects. On the government level it means inserting nutrition classes into school programs. More specifically, every person (parents especially) ought to be interested and study nutrition at least by themselves. It would definitely help people be healthy, get new healthier generation and decrease sufferings which arise from food security and nutritious ignorance.
