Children need healthy food to grow, learn, and thrive. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, however, children in America went hungry at alarming rates. Institutional racism, low wages, and other inequities made it impossible for many families—especially Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous families—to put food on the table. At the same time, policymakers have refused to adequately fund nutrition programs to reach and feed all children in need. Millions of children entered this crisis without consistent access to nutritious food, leaving them especially vulnerable to hunger and harm.
In 2019, more than 1 in 7 children—10.7 million—were food insecure, meaning they lived in households where not everyone had enough to eat (see Table 10). These households struggled to afford and access healthy meals, forcing them to rely on low-cost food to feed their children, skip meals, or even go hungry.
- Black and Hispanic children were twice as likely to live in food-insecure households as white children. Nearly 1 in 4 Black children (24.1 percent) and 1 in 5 Hispanic children (19.2 percent) lived in households that didn’t get enough food to eat in 2019, compared with 1 in 9 white children (11.0 percent).1
- Younger children also faced a greater risk of hunger. Households with children under 6 were more likely to lack access to healthy food than households with children under 18.2
- The majority of households experiencing hunger struggle to put food on the table even with full- or part-time employment. In 2019, 61 percent of households experiencing hunger were in the labor force; 51 percent had at least one full-time worker.3 With living expenses rising, wages stagnating, and systemic racism, food and other basic necessities are becoming increasingly out of reach for working families.
Lack of nutritious and healthy food is linked to low birth weight and birth defects, physical and mental health problems, oral health problems, and poor educational outcomes.
Child Hunger in America
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