Earlier this week, First Lady Michelle Obama announced her Let's Move initiative to combat childhood obesity. Rising childhood obesity rates, however, tell only part of the story. As IATP Food and Society Fellow Andy Fisher writes in a new article, the states ranking highest for childhood obesity also have the highest rates of hunger. In other words, hunger and obesity are two sides of the same broken food system—where obesity-driving food prevails and healthy food is not accessible for everyone.
Fisher's article appears in the latest IATP Food and Society Fellows digest—a must read for those concerned about child nutrition. Congress is currently debating the Child Nutrition Act (CNA). The CNA comes up only every five years. Two big programs within the CNA are the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. In other words, the stakes are high for those dealing with obesity and hunger.
The digest includes articles by Debra Eschmeyer on the school lunch program; Arnelle Hinkle on healthy snacks; school lunch videos by Shalini Kantayya and Nicole Betancourt; Mark Muller on the child nutrition policy landscape; Alethia Carr on the WIC and SNAP programs; and IATP board member and former USDA official Rod Leonard on the origins of the WIC program.
In these times of tight budgets, it's hard to think of a better investment than child nutrition.
