CHILDHOOD HUNGER AND ITS EFFECTS

Food insecurity has been a major concern for a long time, causing hunger, with most of the children being affected. Famine has been posing a threat causing devastation in human, economic, and societal activities. Quality food of the right quantity is necessary right for every man, woman, and child to satisfy their dietary needs. The level of food insecurity and child hunger is related to the household one comes from. Families with deep poverty have stressful experience in severe lack of food. Children faced with starvation often suffer from physical and mental disorders that tend to affect them in the future if not well taken care of. This study’s main aim is to focus on these effects and how they affect children’s development. These adverse effects are shown by how childhood hunger results in a lack of children attaining their education.

According to Althoff et al. (2016), children’s impaired mental health consistently relates to food insecurity in their families. Children from families with a lack of proper nutrition have displayed a greater risk of getting deficiencies in their mental health and poor body health generally. In research conducted in the year 2014, more than 17 million families in the U.S. were unable to access proper nutrition. Most of these reported cases are related to the increased rate of skipping meals and consumption of unhealthy meals like diets that are nutritionally deficient.

According to Chen (2009), the odds of children with poor nutrition experiencing emotional symptoms like being nervous, low, and irritable have proven to be high. Hunger makes the management system of the body’s stress unrelieved, making the children experience toxic stress. Toxic stress inactivated in their early stages of life due to poor nurturing by the parents. This adversity negatively affects the development of the brain, how it processes information, learning, and academic achievements. Because of this, they learn less during the academic year and perform poorly in their academic achievement tests.

Effects in Orphaned, refugees, homeless, and poor children are related to stigmatization. Food insecurity stigmatization causes internalized disorders in children. Children using social services that offer reduced and free lunch programs tend to feel isolated and ashamed due to the stigma they face because of lacking food. Slopen et al. (2010) supported this in his study findings that children from poverty are 2.01 times likely to get internalizing problems than the externalizing problems.

Poor mental development in a child begins in the uterus due to the restriction of intrauterine growth if the mother is undernourished. A relationship has hence been demonstrated between maternal and child health with food inadequacy. Mothers and children majorly experience mental disorders.

The effects of hunger begin as early as in the infancy stage. The cognitive development of a toddler becomes impaired, although it is operated indirectly through maternal depression and parenting. Every individual has a limited cognitive bandwidth, which makes them use limited mental reserves on what they lack. Hungry children tend to neglect school work and focus on food as it is the one thing they lack. Food insecurity in households is directly related to the toddlers’ attachment.

According to the American psychological association (2016), lack of proper diet in a child’s early life is even more impactful. The first years of malnutrition are very harmful to a child. It affects physical growth that lowers the body’s immunity making it less resistant to diseases. This starvation limits the functionality and size of the children’s brain structure, causing stunted capacity intellectually. Therefore, we can conclude that for a child’s growth and development to be rapid, optimal nutrition should be efficient.

It was established that the effects experienced in infancy carry onwards to childhood. There is evidence inconsistency with studies related to food insecurity in children and adolescents. Trajectories of symptoms related to mental health like depression, inattention, anxiety, and hyperactivity were identified mainly in children aged 1-4 who had experienced food insecurities. These findings showed that food security is caused not only by poverty but also by individuals’ behavior and demographic characteristics like parental education and family income.

According to UNICEF, nutrition deficiency is one of the main worldwide causes of child mortality.  It is estimated to be the cause of half of the deaths of children. For a newborn baby to grow into a normal adult, they go through a level of stages. If any of these stages experience deviation, it may lead to disability in development. Studies have identified malnutrition as one of the major causes of disabilities in children across the world. Poor dieting makes children vulnerable state that may lead to intellectual and physical disabilities.

In the study of Chattopadhyay & D (2019), Mental development delays and challenges result in child disability because of poor nutrition. These disabilities include; Cerebral palsy, vision and hearing impairment, mental lag, delayed speech, and learning problems. However, malnutrition is the main cause of developmental delays. Other reasons are; hereditary factors, diseases, poor hygiene, lack of good health care, and poverty.

Children brought up with parents who have disabilities encounter problems in accessing nutritious meals. This inaccessibility is because of the uneven distribution of resources in these households and poverty because they do not participate effectively in society as other people.

In Haque et al. (2017), a home headed by a female has a high risk of getting hunger problems in children. Women are considered vulnerable in society because they lack protection socially, have low earnings, and have restricted access to property ownership, property, and land ownership. Additionally, they face deprivation of important things directly related to child hunger; this is like education. Educated females are associated with factors that contribute to the improvement of child nutrition. Some of these factors include; spacing your births and having fewer kids.

Well educated persons of the feminine gender, secure good jobs, and knowledge that equips them with knowledge on self-sustenance. They are financially independent; they have control over resource allocations in households; therefore, they become well-equipped to maintain a nutritious diet to their children. Thus, in areas where there is maternal education, there is low food insecurity or hunger. These women can cope with the obstacles and restrictions present in a society that is dominated by men.

Despite the mental health issues, children are also at risk of getting adverse health conditions later in life, like anemia and acute infections. Responses of an inadequate supply of food in households include reducing food consumption, adjusting their food budgets, and altering the types of food they eat. This rationing decreases the use of nutritious diets and encourages the consumption of dense foods in energy-giving. They may include refined grains that are, added sugars, and Trans fats. Their quality of nutrition is poor. The households reduce their consumption of micronutrients like zinc, calcium, magnesium, iron, and B complex vitamins. Fruits, dairy, and vegetable rates of ingesting also decrease.

Chronic diseases exhibit links to diet plans. These diseases include; cancer, asthma, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. These health outcomes in adulthood vary because of genetic differences, skills of coping, and mental development stages when exposed to similar environments. Chronic disease conditions are majorly associated with kids who experience malnutrition due to lack of food.

Obesity in childhood is also associated with food insecurity. There is a hypothesis that food uncertainty is related to parental pressure and restrictive styles of feeding compared to mothers who are food secure. Children’s ability to regulate their self-behaviors of eating decreases by controlled methods of feeding, which contribute to future obesity in children. The risk of getting obesity also appears to be determined by sex differences. The chances of girls facing issues related to access to food being obese are higher than those of a boy.

Parents play a major role in their children’s early lives in the treatment and prevention of childhood obesity. The pattern of eating and food preferences develops depending on how they respond to excessive hunger in children. There is evidence that parents practice restrictive eating to their children, disregarding the child’s preferences, which leads to overeating and a higher body mass index. Studies show children feed in the Absence of Hunger if they experience long term restrictions. These restrictions may lead to problematic behaviors of eating in children.

A child’s development is dependent on many factors, with nutrition being one of the main elements ( Ford-Jones & Ke, 2015). Food provides the building block to help in the development of the brain and body of a child. During the early years of a child, there is rapid neurological and physical development, which requires the right amount of nutrition to attain the full capabilities to help the child acquire a quality life. Where there is any interruption in a child obtaining the good food and care needed, it leads to irreversible damage in their development.

Hunger characterizations are observable by low weight for height, stunted height for one’s age, and being underweight. It has brought about negative life-long and intergenerational effects: lack of nutrition for children causes them to suffer from under nutrition-related diseases and deficiencies, leading them to require urgent medical care. Lack of proper medical care for the children may result in death. The government and the public are left with the burden to pay for the cost of catering for the children’s medical bills. Stunted children are likely to drop out of school, which affects their income earning capabilities in the future.

Deficiency of the required nutrition leads to slowing down cognitive and socioemotional capabilities, which affects an individual’s learning capability (Ke & Ford-Jones, 2015). Children faced with hunger suffer from adverse chronic health and mental health conditions that affect their ability to attain education. This study McIntyre et al. (2018) shows that lack of focus often succeeds, leading to children achieving very poor grades that are not encouraging to the kids leading to many of them opting to drop out of school. This failure affects the child in the way when they are old enough, and they are not able to come up with ways of earning income for themselves.

According to Johnson & Markowitz (2018), hunger-related issues depend on the household a child comes from. In many developing and developed countries, poverty is notably a major hindrance in child development. The extremely poor people in the world are distributed unevenly across regions and countries. Vulnerability to the economic crisis of the poorest parts in society leads to the worsening of nutrition and food security at the level of households.

Hunger often causes emotional and social roadblocks; this is according to. Many children coming from families who lack food are often ashamed of this and tend to have trouble connecting with their peers. Some of the cognitive effects of childhood hunger are bad behavior, where children are perceived to have verbal and physical altercations with other children.

As stated in this article, despite many children born in the United States who belong to the wealthiest country in the world, a high proportion of the children do not have access to nutritious meals required for healthy living. Food insecurities lead to hunger, which harms and affects the health and education outcome of children. Various effective programs were established to prevent the harms from occurring: Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), National School Lunch Program.

Many of those who are affected by these belong to;

1. Households with single-parents Households (35.3 % women; 21.7% men), households whose incomes are below or near federal (39.5%), black (26.1%), and those with the particularly high level of food insecurity, and the Hispanic (22.4%)
2. A report from families that earn low incomes said that getting fresh vegetables and fruits in the neighborhood has become rare and expensive. When available, they are of poor quality.

Hunger has harmed children in many ways these are;

1. Contributors to toxic stress are hunger and low security of food.
2. Malnutrition can be brought about by eating foods that are not nutritious. This deprivation results in both psychiatric and non-psychiatric health-related problems.
3. Children tend to focus mainly on what they lack mentally. This reasoning makes them focus primarily on food, which they require instead of putting the focus on studies making them not effective in classwork.
4. There is stigmatization by the children who lack food as they don’t want to be seen by others as being among the poor in society.

Hunger has caused more harm than good as you may find most of the affected children suffer from anxiety and depression.

The programs put in place in the united states to help children get to their full potential assist in;

1. The SNAP has helped in raising the percentage of students who graduate by providing them with food; this is through increasing food expenditures and decreasing food insecurities.
2. The summer food service program reduces food insecurity by allocating $30 per month for each child not to lack food.
3. WIC caters for infant children and ensures that they do not suffer from malnutrition by providing for the born babies and unborn through the support of the women
4. Communities have joined in the fight against the effects of hunger on children by stores within them, ensuring that they sell produce full of nutrition helpful to them.

Food Research & Action Centre (FRAC), an organization based in the united states, needs economic growth restoration and job creation with better pay to improve the livelihood of low-income earners, so it came up with some recommendations to work on those needs. The goal was to return to an economy that is equitable in economic strength and growth. This plan was to be made possible through administrative law and wage-hour, job opportunities, and training for targeted openings, a rising share of the working-age population in the active labor. Workers would also be provided with child care and support to make it easy to provide for their children.

Among key vulnerable groups, food security is high, with children being top of the list. The necessary action taken to end hunger in America is giving priority to most affected people. Nutrition programs setup cannot fully cater to all those affected by hunger. Basic needs have utmost precedence, and the government of America opted to go for other ways to help end hunger:

1. Families got help through improved tax credits for low earning families who were also refunded child tax credit.
2. The needs of a much larger share of unemployed people restored, through a strong unemployment insurance program.
3. Sustainable provisions with improved social security and pension program for the seniors and those disabled are availed.

CONCLUSION

We have discovered that a child’s mental health is directly related to food insecurity. Evidence has shown that there has been a co-occurrence of metabolic and psychological health problems in families experiencing food insecurity. The cognitive ability of the child is restricted. Mental effects begin at infancy and are made worse by maternal depression and eating habits. The physical growth of a child is affected, and their bodies become less resistant to diseases and functioning of the structure of the brain.  Food insecurity has been discovered to be unevenly distributed in regions and countries, and it also depends on the household a child is from. Several ways like female education can be used in controlling the rate of hunger in children.

References

Althoff, R. R., Ametti, M., & Bertmann, F. (2016). The role of food insecurity in developmental psychopathology. Preventive Medicine, 92, 106–109.

American psychological association. (2016). Effects of poverty, hunger, and homelessness on children and youth. Effects of poverty, hunger, and homelessness on children and youth.

Chen, L. W. (2009). Imputed food insecurity as a predictor of disease and mental health in Taiwanese elementary school children. Asia Pacific Journal of clinical nutrition, 18(4), 605.

Haque, M. A., Farzana, F. D., Sultana, S., Raihan, M. J., Rahman, A. S., Waid, J. L., Choudhury, N., & Ahmed, T. (2017). Factors associated with child hunger among food-insecure households in Bangladesh. BMC Public Health, 17(1), 205.

Johnson, A. D., & Markowitz, A. J. (2018). Associations between household food insecurity in early childhood and children’s kindergarten skills. Child Development, 89(2), e1–e17.

Ke, J., & Ford-Jones, E. L. (2015). Food insecurity and hunger: A review of the effects on children’s health and behavior. Paediatrics & Child Health, 20(2), 89–91.

McIntyre, L., Kwok, C., & Patten, S. B. (2018). The effect of child hunger on educational attainment and early childbearing outcomes in a longitudinal population sample of Canadian youth. Paediatrics & Child Health, 23(5), e77–e84.

Slopen: Poverty, food insecurity, and the behavior… – Google Scholar. (n.d.). Retrieved July 30, 2020, from https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Journal+of+the+American+Academy+of+Child+and+Adolescent+Psychiatry&title=Poverty,+food+insecurity,+and+the+behavior+for+childhood+internalizing+and+externalizing+disorders&author=N+Slopen&author=G+Fitzmaurice&author=DR+Williams&author=SE+Gilman&volume=49&publication_year=2010&pages=444-452&pmid=20431464&#d=gs_cit&u=%2Fscholar%3Fq%3Dinfo%3AzpMbvxbsoGQJ%3Ascholar.google.com%2F%26output%3Dcite%26scirp%3D0%26hl%3Den

.