Frequently Asked Questions

  • Why is nutrition relevant to child health and development?

    Poor nutrition increases young children’s risk of contracting illnesses and compromises their immune systems, creating a downward cycle in which children lose weight with each illness; because the family often has no extra food (or money to buy it) to build them back up again, they are left malnourished and more susceptible to the next illness, which is often more serious and leads to more depletion, so that children end up in the hospital suffering from the infection-malnutrition cycle.

  • What is food insecurity?

    Household food insecurity refers to uncertain or limited access to enough food for all household members to lead an active and healthy life. Child food insecurity is the most severe form of food insecurity, in which food supply is so limited that parents can no longer buffer their children from scarcity. Food insecurity increases a child’s susceptibility to developmental risk. Developmental risk in early childhood is a continuum of vulnerabilities with slow development in one or more areas—such as speaking, moving, or behavior—that identifies children with increased likelihood of later problems with learning, attention, and/or social interactions.

  • What is the size of the problem in the United States?

    The best way to be food insecure is to be a young child; 16.9% of US children under age 6 live in a food insecure household, compared to 6.7% of adult-only households, according to data from the USDA.
    The America’s Second Harvest emergency food network provided hunger relief services to an estimated 25 million low-income people in 2005—including 2 million children under age 5—an 8% increase since 2001.

    Click here to go to the United States Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, where you can access national data and evaluation on food and nutrition assistance.

  • What are the health consequences of food insecurity for children?

    Children's HealthWatch research shows that the foundations of lifelong health are laid very early in a child's life. Nationally, compared to their peers in food secure households, babies and toddlers living in food insecure households are:
    • 30% more likely to have had a past hospitalization.
    • 90% more likely to be in fair or poor health.
    • Nearly twice as likely to have iron-deficiency anemia.

  • What are the development consequences of food insecurity for children?

    Developmental gaps between food insecure babies and toddlers and their food secure peers are present long before kindergarten entry. Infants and toddlers from low-income families are already at developmental risk due to poverty and are put at increased risk for cognitive, motor or behavioral problems by food insecurity. Developmental risk in early childhood is a continuum of vulnerabilities with slow development in one or more areas—such as speaking, moving, or behavior—that identifies children with increased likelihood of later problems with learning, attention, and/or social interactions.  Developmental risk can be “invisible;” even when children’s growth has not yet been affected, food insecurity can negatively impact babies’ and toddlers’ development.  Underweight babies and toddlers are 166% more likely to be at developmental risk as compared to normal weight babies and toddlers.  For babies and toddlers in low-income, food-insecure households, they are 76% more likely to be at developmental risk.  

  • What are the major policy implications of food insecurity among children?

    • The first three years of life are a critical period for good nutrition, which establish the scaffolding for children’s future health and academic achievement and subsequent workforce participation.
    • Of all the many factors jeopardizing children’s health, development and school readiness, food insecurity is the most easily remedied.
    • Nutrition assistance programs, like WIC and the Food Stamp Program, are effective and efficient ways to decrease food insecurity.

  • What can be done to protect young children's health and development?

    1. Reduce food insecurity. By reducing the prevalence or severity of food insecurity, food stamps, WIC and other nutrition assistance programs promise to reduce child hospitalization and health care costs. By reducing the prevalence or severity of food insecurity, food stamps, WIC and other nutrition assistance programs promise to reduce child hospitalization, poor child health, and developmental delay, thereby potentially reducing health care and special/remedial education costs. To read more about this, click here.

    2. Broaden eligibility for nutrition assistance programs. Reaching vulnerable populations, such as families on the cusp of eligibility and legal immigrant families, could help to decrease poor health, growth and developmental risk for young children from low-income families who are disproportionately affected by these problems.

    3. Increase benefits for the Food Stamp Program. The benefit calculation is outdated and the value of benefits erode each year.
      • Children's HealthWatch research has shown that, at the current benefit levels, when food insecure low-income families receive food stamps, the harmful effects of food insecurity on babies’ and toddlers’ health are reduced but not eliminated.
      • Previous research at Boston Medical Center showed that the gap between the maximum annual food stamp benefit and the cost of a low-cost healthy diet is $2,520 in Boston and $3,165 in Philadelphia!  To read more about this, click here.
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