Dlz28 The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building, Washington, DC.

A study published in the November 2009 issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine titled "Estimating the Risk of Food Stamp Use and Impoverishment During Childhood" concluded that: American children are at a high risk of encountering a spell during which their families are in poverty and food insecure as indicated through their use of food stamps. Such events have the potential to seriously jeopardize a child's overall health. The study used 30 years of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics survey data set in order to estimate the lifetime risk that an American child will reside in a household receiving food stamps and, as a result, will encounter poverty and a heightened exposure to food insecurity. Researchers measured whether survey households received the Food Stamp Program during the prior year. The results are as follows: Between the ages of 1 to 20 years, nearly half (49.2%) of all American children will, at some point, reside in a household that receives food stamps. Households in need of the program use it for relatively short periods but are also likely to return to the program at several points during the childhood years. Race, parental education, and head of household's marital status exert a strong influence on the proportion of children residing in a food stamp household. The authors, Dr. Mark Rank with the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University and Dr. Hirschl with the Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, said "it's a medical issue pediatricians need to be aware of because children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty." Moreover, lead author Dr. Mark Rank told the AP:

Your neighbor may be using some of these programs but it's not the kind of thing people want to talk about. It suggests that almost everyone knows a family who has received food stamps, or will in the future. This is a real danger sign that we as a society need to do a lot more to protect children.

In a report released earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that almost 15 percent of households in 2008 "were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security—meaning that the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food." Prevalence rates of food insecurity and very low food security were "the highest recorded since 1995, when the first national food security survey was conducted" the report states. According to the Washington Post, the federal report shows that nearly 50 million people, including almost one child in four, struggled in 2008 to get enough to eat. President Obama called the USDA's report "unsettling," according to the Washington Post, and the food shortages and outright hunger "startled even the nation's leading anti-poverty advocates." Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, the largest organization representing food banks and other emergency food sources, was quoted as saying, "This is unthinkable. It's like we are living in a Third World country." In a press release issued by the USDA, it was noted that the Recovery Act "included a significant increase in nutrition assistance benefits for the 36.5 million people (half of whom are children) who participate in USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly the Food Stamp Program." Moreover, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said "During challenging economic times, the pool of those in need of vital food assistance expands. USDA's role - along with our partners - is to ensure individuals do not fall through the cracks, and can access nutritional services with dignity and respect." In a related story reported in DigitalJournal.com, child poverty rates in two of Arkansas' wealthiest counties soared between 1990 and 2007. One county is the home of Walmart Stores, Inc. where the Walmart Foundation is sending food to food banks to "eradicate hunger." However, as reported in the story, poverty and hunger are linked to low wages.