The real costs of hunger are hidden. One major hiding place is the healthcare system. Bread for the World Institute’s 2016 Hunger Report, The Nourishing Effect: Ending Hunger, Improving Health, Reducing Inequality—which was released November 23—shows that in 2014 alone, using very conservative figures, hunger and food insecurity added $160 billion to our national healthcare costs.
The old adage “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” has never been more on the money.
America’s food-insecurity levels are shockingly high. Each year since 2008, the number of food-insecure people has been stuck between 48 and 50 million. Such consistently high levels of hunger and food insecurity have cost the U.S. healthcare system close to a $1 trillion since 2008 alone.
Food insecurity is associated with higher rates of asthma, depression, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other physical and mental health problems. People who are food-insecure are more likely to be in poor health, and, in a vicious cycle, poor health increases the risk of being food-insecure.
Food insecurity in childhood is a predictor of chronic illness in adulthood. It’s also an inter-generational problem, since parents in poor health may not be able to earn enough income to provide the nutritious food their growing children need.
The full article is available here
