More Babies, Young Kids Going Hungry in US

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http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/061305HA.shtml

 

More Babies, Young Kids Going Hungry in US

Agence France-Presse

 

Sunday 12 June 2005

 

" What happens in America is - what seems bizarre - that some of

the recommendations that we give to families to prevent underweight of

children are the same as we give to prevent overweight. We recommend

families not to give their children junk food. " - Dr. Maureen Black

 

Increasing numbers of young American children are showing signs of

serious malnourishment, fueled by a greater prevalence of hunger in

the United States, while, paradoxically, two-thirds of the US

population is either overweight or obese.

 

In 2003, 11.2 percent of families in the United States experienced

hunger, compared with 10.1 percent in 1999, according to most recent

official figures, released on National Hunger Awareness Day held this

year on Tuesday, June 7.

 

Some pediatricians worry that cuts in welfare aid proposed in

President George W. Bush's 2006 budget will only exacerbate the

situation. By contrast Bush plans to keep tax cuts for more affluent

sectors of the population, they note.

 

In the working class port city of Baltimore, Maryland, Dr. Maureen

Black, a pediatrician, sees numbers of underweight babies in her

clinic specialized in infant malnutrition located in one of the poorer

areas.

 

" In the first year of life, children triple their birth weight, "

said Black, " and if children do not have enough to eat during those

very early very times, you first see that their weight will falter and

then their height will falter. "

 

" If their height falters enough and they experience stunting under

age two, they are then at risk for academic and behavior problems " at

school, said Black.

 

Dr. Deborah Frank, a professor of pediatrics at Boston

University's School of Medicine, who also runs a specialized clinic

for malnourished babies, has similar concerns.

 

" We are seeing more and more very young babies under a year of age

which is a particular concern because they are most likely to die of

under nutrition, and also their brains are growing very very rapidly, "

said Frank, in a telephone interview.

 

" A baby's brain increases 2.5 times in size in the first year of

life, " she says, adding that if the baby fails to get the nutritional

building blocks he or she needs for the brain to develop, a child can

have lifelong difficulties in behavior and learning.

 

But infant-child protection centers do not exist in the United

States, unlike it other countries, such as France, which makes

children below the age of three or four years old somewhat invisible

to authorities, laments Frank. " They don't come to my clinic until

they are already quite underweight.

 

" Recently I have been alarmed because we are getting more children

who are so ill that they go to hospital rather than they come to the

clinic first " a situation which, in 20 years of practicing medicine,

Frank had seen reverse.

 

Some children in the United States occasionally look like the

malnourished children we see in some parts of Africa, however, welfare

programs targeting society's poorest ensures that problem is generally

avoided, the pediatricians say.

 

Paradoxically, malnutrition is not always due to lack of food -

rather to the quality of the food being consumed.

 

" People often ask me how many children go to bed hungry. The

answer is the parents work very hard so they don't go to bed feeling

hungry. The parents try to fill the baby up with French fries and soda

pop, " said Frank.

 

In some areas, green vegetables and fruit are impossible to buy -

even in a can, because there may be no supermarket. Moreover, such

items are costly.

 

" What happens in America is - what seems bizarre - that some of

the recommendations that we give to families to prevent underweight of

children are the same as we give to prevent overweight, " said Black.

" We recommend families not to give their children junk food. "

 

In some families, eating junk food will mean one child is obese

while the other is underweight, said Black. " The first will eat junk

food and nothing else, the second will eat junk food and everything else. "

 

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