{"id":8700,"date":"2015-09-08T21:45:34","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T01:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=8700"},"modified":"2024-09-11T20:58:42","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T00:58:42","slug":"usa-today-washingtons-latest-hunger-charade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/08\/usa-today-washingtons-latest-hunger-charade\/","title":{"rendered":"USA TODAY: Washington’s Latest Hunger Charade"},"content":{"rendered":"

USA TODAY<\/strong>, September 9, 2015<\/p>\n

\n

Washington’s latest hunger charade<\/a><\/h1>\n<\/section>\n
\n
by James Bovard\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\n

USDA plays games with definitions to create fraudulent scare. ‘Food insecure’ is the new hungry.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Agriculture Department announced this morning<\/span><\/span> that 48 million Americans\u00a0lived in “food insecure” households in 2014.”\u00a0Soon you\u2019ll hear we\u2019re suffering an epidemic of hunger. While the federal government is already feeding more than 100 million<\/a> Americans, we\u2019ll be told that it just isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

But it isn\u2019t true. \u201cFood insecurity\u201d is a statistic designed to mislead.\u00a0<\/strong>USDA defines food insecurity as being \u201cuncertain of having, or unable to acquire<\/a>, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.\u201d\u00a0 USDA noted: \u201cFor most food-insecure households<\/a>, the inadequacies were in the form of reduced quality and variety rather than insufficient quantity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The definition of \u201cfood insecure\u201d includes anyone who frets about not being able to purchase food<\/a> at any point. If someone states that they feared running out of food for a single day (but didn\u2019t run out), that is an indicator of being \u201cfood insecure\u201d for the entire year \u2014 regardless of whether they ever missed a single meal.\u00a0If someone wants organic kale but can afford only conventional kale, that is another \u201cfood insecure\u201d indicator.<\/p>\n

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine\u00a0have\u00a0criticized USDA<\/a> for how these statistics are contorted from a measure of household “security” into a misleading estimate that millions of individuals go hungry. After the 2009 USDA food security report was released, President Obama announced that \u201chunger rose significantly last year<\/a>. … My administration is committed to reversing the trend of rising hunger.”\u00a0The latest report will likely be heavily exploited\u00a0 by Democratic presidential candidates and others who see a chance to burnish their benevolent image.\u00a0(Sen. Bernie Sanders has claimed that \u201chunger is at an all-time high<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Private nonprofit organizations exploit USDA statistics to create a crisis atmosphere.\u00a0Feeding America proclaimed September as Hunger Action Month, encouraging people to \u201ctake selfies while balancing orange spoons<\/a> on their noses and sharing the photos, tagging their friends and challenging them to participate and raise awareness.\u201d\u00a0The North Carolina governor\u2019s executive mansion was lit up with orange<\/a> last week to promote Hunger Action Month.<\/p>\n

USDA food security reports, by creating the illusion of a national hunger epidemic, have helped propel a vast increase in federal food aid in recent years.\u00a0But that has been a dietary disaster across the land.\u00a0A Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics study concluded that \u201cfood insecure<\/a>\u201d adults are far more likely to be obese than \u201cfood secure\u201d adults \u2014 indicating that a shortage of food is not the real health problem. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/em>,\u00a0\u201cseven times as many<\/a>\u00a0(low-income)\u00a0children are obese as are underweight.\u201d\u00a0President Obama proclaimed<\/a> September as National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month.<\/p>\n

Most federal food aid is poorly targeted to boost nutrition. Forty percent<\/a> of food-stamp recipients are obese.\u00a0And food-stamp recipients are far more likely to be obese than low-income Americans not on food stamps. A 2014 Stanford University study concluded that prohibiting the use of food stamps for sugary drinks would prevent 141,000 kids<\/a> from becoming fat and save a quarter million adults from Type 2 diabetes, but the Obama administration fiercely resists any constraints<\/a> on how food stamps are spent. When food stamps are distributed on weekends, recipients purchase up to 7% more beer<\/a> during the month (even though beer is not covered<\/a> by the stamps), according to a recent National Bureau of Economic Research report.<\/p>\n

The insecurity = hunger\u00a0switcheroo\u00a0 is also fueling campaigns to compel schools to give free breakfasts to all kids after school starts each day<\/strong>. An American Journal of Public Health<\/em> study warned that such programs \u201cmay contribute to excess calorie intake<\/a>;\u201d the survey found that more than half of all kids participating in such programs eat twice in the morning.\u00a0USDA\u2019s nationwide 2012 School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study found that the average elementary school breakfast provided almost all<\/a> of children\u2019s daily recommended calories from solid fats and added sugars.\u00a0Donuts continue to be a popular item on school breakfast menus.<\/p>\n

Some Americans are going hungry but USDA has never attempted to create an accurate gauge to measure actual hunger. Instead, citizens are supposed to be satisfied with federal reports that are little more than a subsidy for political grandstanding.\u00a0Unfortunately, bogus numbers rarely spawn good policies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Bovard\u00a0is the author of\u00a0<\/em>Public Policy Hooligan<\/a>\u00a0and a member of USA TODAY’s\u00a0<\/em>Board of Contributors<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

On Twitter @jimbovard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

USA TODAY, September 9, 2015 Washington’s latest hunger charade by James Bovard\u00a0 USDA plays games with definitions to create fraudulent scare. ‘Food insecure’ is the new hungry. The Agriculture Department announced this morning that 48 million Americans\u00a0lived in “food insecure” households in 2014.”\u00a0Soon you\u2019ll hear we\u2019re suffering an epidemic of hunger. While the federal government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[149,415,15,723,438,322,202,423,38,324,165,153,151],"class_list":["post-8700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agriculture","tag-boondoggle","tag-congress","tag-diabetes","tag-food-security","tag-food-stamps","tag-fraud","tag-hunger","tag-obama","tag-obesity","tag-paternalism","tag-usda","tag-waste"],"yoast_head":"\nUSA TODAY: Washington's Latest Hunger Charade - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"USA Today Oped: USDA plays games with definitions to create fraudulent scare. 'Food insecure' is the new hungry. 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