Poverty Drains Nutrition From Family Diet

[flashl]

Study found adults ate worse than children did in 'food-insecure' households

THURSDAY, Feb. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Members of poor households in which it is consistently hard to afford enough high-quality food end up eating nutritionally risky diets, Canadian researchers reveal.

The new study is the first to show that food insecurity directly translates into poor nutrition. It also suggests that in such homes, adults and teens, rather than very young children, are the most likely to be subsisting on diets low in vitamins, minerals, fruits, vegetables, grains and meat.

"Over the long term, could be expected to precipitate and complicate diet-related chronic diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease," cautioned study co-author, Sharon Kirkpatrick, a doctoral candidate in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto.

...

The study highlights similar estimates for 2006, suggesting that 12.6 million U.S. households experience food insecurity, while 4.6 million have one or more family members going without food. Recent Canadian research indicates that just over 9 percent of households are food-insecure.


Medline

'Food insecure' current parlance for starving.

[acmavm]

1. Yeah, that's the new bureaucratese phrase for going without food.

[fasttense]

2. Food insecurity? Call it what it is - starvation. and hunger.

[wellstone dem]

3. Adequately funded government food programs could make a difference

"The new study is the first to show that food insecurity directly translates into poor nutrition. It also suggests that in such homes, adults and teens, rather than very young children, are the most likely to be subsisting on diets low in vitamins, minerals, fruits, vegetables, grains and meat."

Not surprising, households with very young children can qualify for the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) food program.

Also households with teenagers do not receive adequate food stamp grants. These grants were computed on what was needed for a basic nutritional food plan for a household that included children, but not teenagers.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. I grew up in the days when it was considered proper to keep

clergy not just in modest circumstances, but in actual poverty. After all, they got a free house, right? What did they need a lot of cash for?

Years later, when I heard about a "welfare diet," I thought, "That's how we used to eat."

At the age of eight, I ended up anemic.

[screwballz]

5. Obama will end the injustice

hopefully.

[cutlassmama]

6. Since he grew up in abject poverty (to age 10) in Indonesia

he has a lot of interest in helping people out of poverty.

I have high hopes for him.