Heritage Foundation Analyzes Food Insecurity in America

The Heritage Foundation has published a new web memorandum titled "Hunger Hysteria: Examining Food Security and Obesity in America." The memo, published November 13 and authored by Robert E. Rector, is available on the Heritage Foundation web site.

According to the memo, the soon-to-be-released U.S. Department of Agriculture annual report on U.S. household food security will likely contain data very much like the data released in the last report that estimated approximately 11 percent of American households suffered from some form of food insecurity during the previous year.

Food insecurity, the Heritage Foundation says, occurs when a household either makes changes in its diet to prevent disruption of food intake, relies on a small number of core food items for meals, or is forced to reduce or disrupt food intake because of financial reasons. Heritage says that around 1 percent of American adults were forced to go forego food for a full day in 2005 because they did not have enough money to make food purchases.

In an interesting twist, the Heritage memo says that most of the adults who met the definition of food insecurity were either overweight or obese. For males, Heritage says, 70 percent were overweight or obese while the percentage for food insecure women who were either overweight or obese was closer to 75 percent. The important connection, the memo says, is that government statistics demonstrate that the majority of food insecure adults eat too much food and do not, as is often thought, suffer from a lack of adequate food supplies.

The answer, Heritage says, is for the government to develop policies that promote spreading food supplies out over time rather than eating too much during short periods. This, the memo says, will help prevent disruptions or reductions in food intake. Current policies promote allocating money to poor households for the purchase of more food supplies. Specifically with reference to the Food Stamp program, the memo says that food stamps increase obesity rather than increasing the quality of foods consumed.