Hunger stats

(c/o Feeding America)

"You're not yourself when you're hungry."

A Snickers commercial may feel like an unlikely place to find a revelation, but there's a strong correlation between a community's lack of access to healthy food and its overall health.

A recent study by Feeding America identified the food insecurity rate at 18.8% in Alabama, suggesting that 911,440 people, including 292,330 children, experience some level of food insecurity throughout the year.

Food insecurity is a difficult phenomenon to quantify, because it does not strictly parallel wealth. Feeding America's research revealed that "about 56% of those struggling with hunger actually have incomes above the federal poverty level and 59% of poor households are food secure."

A more accurate view reflects the daily trade-offs that American families make when they're forced to reconcile their basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, while also purchasing nutritionally adequate foods. Feeding America looked at the USDA's measure of lack of access to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods.

Access to grocery stores, farmers markets and community gardens can impact whether or not a family can access nutritional food. So, sorry Snickers, but access to a candy bar doesn't improve one's food security.

Food insecurity can plague families in rural and urban communities alike - Jefferson County has 19.7 percent food insecurity while Dallas County's food insecurity rate is 30.3 percent while their neighbors of St. Clair and Autaga Counties are both under 15 percent. No county had less than 10 percent food poverty, however. Even in the state's most food secure county (Shelby), one in 10 still struggle to have consistent access to quality food.

The impact that a lack of access to nutritional food can have on a family cannot be overstated. Many Alabamians have a knee-jerk opposition to "food stamps," but hungry families can cost the state much more in the long run.

"Food insecurity has devastatingly negative impacts on school performance, productivity, and most importantly, long term health and the ability to age in your own home," according to Will Thomas, an Alabama native and Hunger Program Analyst for the AARP Foundation.

Hungry kids have been shown to have lower test scores, more behavior problems, and are more likely to repeat a grade, correlations that can have real impacts on the state's education budget and future workforce.

Recent studies have shown that severely food insecure individuals will require an average nearly twice as much as moderately food secure individuals in annual healthcare costs.

"For adults, especially older adults, food insecurity is a driver for a variety of health issues, particularly costly chronic illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity," said Thomas.

According to a 2015 research study from the AARP Foundation -- the charitable arm of AARP serving the low-income 50+ community -- approximately 15 percent of Alabamians over the age of 50 struggle with food insecurity.

So what can be done to combat food insecurity? Well, we can start with SNAP - the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - which is formerly known as (and continued to be derided as) "food stamps."

This program provides financial assistance to families to supplement their grocery budget. In Alabama, the average SNAP beneficiary receives only about $4/day ($121.77/month) so while these benefits aren't typically enough to carry a family through the month, many people do rely on these benefits to help make ends meet. Rather than the callous accusations of "welfare queens" or "freeloaders, the vast majority of individuals on SNAP are children, elderly, disabled, or working families who are simply struggling to keep the lights on and food on the table.

First the good news: Alabama recently lifted the lifelong ban on public benefits, including SNAP, for felons who are reentering society.

"This is a great move to improve the lives of those individuals and their families and help them integrate back into society while finding work," said Thomas.

But potentially more damaging is the legislature's decision earlier this year, to implement the ABAWD (Able Bodied Adults Without Dependents) time limit, which could cost as many as 32,000 Alabamians access to nutritional food because they've been unable to find work.

It's easy to understand the desire to tie benefits to employment, but in reality, some rural Alabamians are forced to face the one-two punch of a lack of employment opportunity, and a lack of food. In a state that finds pride in Christian-values, we should always strive to feed those in need.

Thomas points out that there are also programs that work to make sure SNAP participants have access to farmers markets, and some even will match SNAP participants' money dollar for dollar, meaning that those on SNAP eat healthier and their money goes directly to local farmers, benefitting the local economy and Alabama farmers.

We're not ourselves when we're hungry. Hungry families struggle in school, in the workforce and in their healthcare costs. Providing access to nutritional food may in reality help lower our educational and healthcare costs, but that's not why we should do it.

We should do it because no Alabamian should be forced to choose between paying their bills and eating.