Addressing the authors of Addressing food insecurity

This is the letter I wrote to the authors of "Addressing Food Insecurity; Freedom from Want, Freedom From Fear," JAMA, Dec. 1, 2010, Vol 304, No. 21, pp. 2405-06. They press all the hot buttons--a reference to FDR, the vision of hungry children, statistics pulled from the air, and citing the American Dietetic Association, and the United Nations declaration of human rights, but not the real causes of hunger.

Dr. Samuel Bitton, MD
Cohen Children's Medical Center of NY

Dr. Jesse Roth, MD
Feinstein Institute for Medical Research

of The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in New Hyde Park and Manhasset, New York

Dear Doctors Bitton and Roth:

"Food insecurity" is a buzz word I wish the government hadn't developed (2006) to expand the definition of hunger to include reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet or a disrupted eating pattern. Also, your launch paragraph's reference to FDR who lengthened the Great Depression with numerous social programs (now being imitated by President Obama in a variety of take-overs, stimulus packages and bail-outs), is telling. His "freedom from fear" has expanded to Americans fearing the expansion of our government with little hope of being freed from that fear.

But let's address hunger. The number one cause for poverty and hunger among children is their unmarried mother who hasn't completed her education before having babies. Or you could put the responsibility on men instead of women--lack of the biological father in the home--serial boyfriends and sugar daddies don't count, nor does Uncle Sam as a step-father. Keep in mind, this term was developed during the boom economy when the USDA was running out of truly hungry people! Now with government extended unemployment, there are people in food lines who never expected to be there. Then if we look at other causes of low income which could result in "reduced quality, variety and desirability" of the diet, you'll see that the graph for income pretty closely overlays the graph for IQ. Unless you plan to physically remove all children from households where the parents range below a certain IQ level, I think you'll need to rethink your plan to have doctors screen for the "negative health consequences" of nutritionally poor choices.

We could save billions of USDA dollars a year with a simple accessible van service (staffed by the people we remove from USDA SNAP positions) to drive people without transportation to a super market. We don't need elaborate systems of farmers' markets brought into the inner city, or even more school feeding programs. Many people of limited means simply can't get to a well stocked grocery to buy basic goods--10 lbs of potatoes, peppers, green beans, a gallon or two of milk, bread, flour, sugar, fruit juice, eggs, etc. Have you ever tried lugging home a gallon of milk on a bus? I know my plan would cause a lot of unemployment in the USDA funded programs both government and non-profit who live on ever-expanding government grants, but maybe they could go back to college and become doctors.