When one thinks of the United States and food security at the same time they tend to assume that hunger is not a problem there. It is one of the most developed countries in the world, has plentiful resources, and a population wealthy enough to afford enough food to eat. Even a "poor" college student like myself can afford to eat fast food almost on a daily basis. But such assumptions could not be further from the truth. Yes most Americans can afford whatever food they want (the alarmingly increasing percentage of obese Americans continues to grow), but the number of Americans who are food insecure is larger than many may expect.
I investigated the food security of my home state, Oklahoma. The information I found was alarming, and sadly disturbing in many ways. The majority of people are indeed food secure, roughly 84.8% according to the USDA. According to the USDA, in 2004 15% of the 1.4 million Oklahoman households were food insecure, or over 200,000 households, while the national average was 11.9%. The number of households who were not only food insecure, but had members who went hungry, was 5.6% while the national average was 3.9%. This is startling not only because people went hungry, but in both food insecure and hungry households the state of Oklahoma was well over the national average.
What is household food security?
Definitions from the Life Sciences Research Office
Food security – Access by all people at all times to enough food for
an active, healthy life (without recourse to emergency food sources
such as food pantries and soup kitchens). Food security includes at
a minimum: 1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and
safe foods; 2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in
socially acceptable ways.
Food insecurity – Limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally
adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire
acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.
Hunger – The uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack of food;
the recurrent and involuntary lack of access to food.
The number of people who are food insecure seems to be directly related to the level of poverty in the state of Oklahoma. Around 14.6% of the population of 3.5 million are below the poverty line, which is also above the nation average of 12.5%. These numbers jump to 16.3% in rural areas, and in the top poorest counties they break 20
%.
All this just goes to show that things are not always what they appear. One of the bread basket states of the US has above average levels of food insecurity and poverty. Even one of the largest, most wealthy nations in the world is fighting food insecurity and hunger, despite the fact that the nation sends large amounts of humanitarian aid around the world. I can only hope that this information will help people to look beyond what is in front of them, nothing can be done about the world's problems if no one knows that a problem even exists.
*I should note that all statistics, and the definitions for food security, food insecurity, and hunger were taken from a single article: Closer to Home by Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture (Chapter 2).
http://www.kerrcenter.com/publications/closer_to_home/
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