The Problem Is Obesity Not Hunger (Thoughts On The Food Stamps Debate)

Throughout history, politicians have fabricated crises to justify their own solution to the crisis they themselves dreamed up. History is strewn with non-existent crises – the population bomb, global cooling, resource depletion,  freon destroying the ozone layer, and so on  – that threaten destruction unless the government acts. The U.S. “hunger crisis” is the latest in a long line of such relics.

The current hysteria over the House bill to cut food stamps by $40 billion over a decade  (see Krugman, Free to Be Hungry) will be framed against America’s “hunger crisis” fabricated by the powerful “hunger lobby.”  Democrats will use the “hunger crisis” as a cudgel to beat those who favor cuts in food stamps into bloody submission. How can any decent person favor cutting aid to hungry families, who, according to the crisis mongers, constitute one out of six of our neighbors? Few politicians have the fortitude to withstand the onslaught and the “crisisists” will likely win. A non-crisis will be “solved,” as real facts and real crises are ignored.

Facts are the enemy of the “crisisists.”  Therefore, we hear few of them, and the facts we hear are distorted beyond recognition. In this case, the facts speak for themselves: The United States, and increasingly the affluent world, has a crisis not of hunger but of obesity. The hunger crisis is a clever fabrication to serve political and commercial interests. If the hunger lobby’s facts are true, our hunger rates equal those of the poorest African and Asian countries.

A quick review of the real facts:

Fact 1: More than one of three Americans is obese.  

On the other hand:

Fact 2: One in a thousand adults and one in ten thousand children do not eat for a whole day on an average day.

Fact 3: Almost a third of a million Americans die annually of obesity. Obesity is the second leading cause of preventable deaths.

On the other hand:

Fact 4: Deaths from hunger (due primarily to eating disorders) are too rare to be recorded in mortality statistics.

(Readers can check my sources: Journal of American Medical Association, USDA Economic Research Service, S-9, West Virginia Health Statistics Center.)

go to forbes.com

Some Facts on Food Stamps You’ll Not See Elsewhere

The House Republicans proposed to cut $2 billion a year for ten years from food stamps (a “drastic” 3% cut fro0m the $80 billion program). The Senate passed on a bipartisan basis a much smaller reduction over the same period. House Republicans understood that they could not pass a farm bill that included $2 billion annual cuts in food stamps, so the House tried but failed to pass a farm bill without food stamps, hoping to pass a separate food stamp bill later. Liberal Democrats condemned the House action in unison, claiming falsely House Republicans wanted to wipe out the food stamp program entirely.

The liberal blogosphere condemns any cut in food stamps on the grounds that poor hungry people, especially children, are hurt and that food stamps have become an essential (and apparently permanent) stimulus to keep our economy moving.

Currently, 48 million people receive food stamps, 17 million of which are classified by the USDA as families with very low food security, of which 5 million are children. The USDA’s “very low food security measure” is its feeble attempt to measure the number of hungry Americans.

The accompanying chart (taken directly from the Congressional Budget Office) provides some perspective on where we stand:

The chart shows that, in past years, the number of recipients and spending on food stamps move with the business cycle, as measured by the unemployment rate. However, starting in 2001, food stamp spending and participation rose despite low unemployment due to the use of EBT credit cards and enhanced enrollment efforts. (Thank you, George W. Bush?) Both enrollment and spending soared with the recession of 2008, but did not moderate with the recovery that began in late 2009/early 2010. Both food stamp spending and participation doubled between 2007 and the present!

Those who oppose any cuts in the food stamps program argue that food stamp spending and participation were driven up by the recession and we still need an extra boost. If so, they should accept the fact that food stamps should decline as the recovery continues. The chart shows that the CBO expects food stamp spending to drop by $11 billion over the next decade, and the number of recipients to fall by 13 million people (under current legislation) as a consequence of the economic recovery.

Using CBO projections, Congress should prepare for reductions in the food stamp program. Using the CBO figures, Congress should budget slightly over $1 billion less per year over the next decade even without any changes in food stamp rules. Although opponents of food stamp cuts warn that some 2 million people will lose coverage as a result of the proposed House bill, the CBO projects that a much larger 13 million will lose coverage as the recovery proceeds without any changes in the way food stamps are administered.

Let us remember that food stamps are an entitlement that is supposed to increase during bad economic times and decrease during good economic times. Supposedly, we are in a recovery, or at least that is what we are told.

Those who oppose any reduction in the number of beneficiaries and benefits paid have lost sight of the meaning of entitlements, just as those who argue for permanent stimulus have forgotten the basics of Keynesian economics. Instead of accepting the reductions that are supposed to accompany a recovery, they are making new arguments. One is that food stamps really do not fight hunger. Rather food stamps fight obesity, especially among children. (I do not know how food stamps affect recipients’ choice of food. Please enlighten me). Obesity is a growing problem, so we need more food stamps. Second, they argue that we need food stamps as a disguised form of stimulus, without which the recovery is jeopardized.

I guess obesity and deficient stimulus will always be with us. Therefore let’s have no cuts in food stamps.

In googling material for this piece, I found that the first 40 posts argued against any food stamps cuts of any kind and warned of horrendous consequences of cuts. I ran across a vast array of groups and lobbyists with vested interests in food stamps. I did not find one article supporting the food stamps cuts that must come according to the CBO. The one exception was an attack on Lou Dobbs for venturing to say food stamps need to be cut.

We have no lobby for cutting government spending. Let’s hope the Tea Party gets animated again. This is a good issue for them.

Poverty And Hunger In America: A Letter From The Front Line

My article Even Matt Damon and Beyonce Could Not Sell the True Child Hunger Statistic (One In A Thousand) stirred up a hornet’s nest. I used USDA statistics to show the child-hunger lobby’s “one-in-five-children-hungry” statistic is a wild exaggeration. Instead, maybe one in a thousand children are hungry on any given day – a number not statistically different from zero. This drew a righteous response from the CEO of the largest hunger charity (Feeding America), who argued that “even one hungry child is one too many.” (I guess he would then agree that a child killed in an entertainment park is one too many, so we should close them down along with those dangerous city zoos). Another angry critic invited me to her home town to view child hunger first hand. I requested that she send me some cases from her community, but I am still waiting.

I reproduce, in its entirety, a remarkable comment from a couple living in poverty, in which they describe their experiences with hunger in their own home and community – a report, so to say, from the front lines of poverty in America.

 ”John Doe” writes in his comment:


go to forbes.com

Mayor Bloomberg: Big Gulps OK For Women

Epidemics provide fodder for the news media, especially on slow news days. They give politicians a good cause to promote and villains to blame.  We move from one fad epidemic to the next, abandoning old ones to the dustbin of history.  Fear of epidemics that never were can be costly, such as the mad cow epidemic, whose incidence proved no more than the normal background disease level. There are still enough tuna to grace our tables, and the polar bear population seems to be doing just fine.

Obesity is the new fad epidemic. It gives the First Lady a cause to divert attention from the economy, and the Mayor of New York can gain accolades by banning Big Gulps and other offending beverages. Super-thin anchor women can condescendingly narrate stock footage of the same obese woman walking her toy terrier, her beltline jiggling. What is America coming to? American women have let themselves go.

The January 2012 release of the  Prevalence of Obesity in the United States by the Center for Disease Control confirmed suspicions of an obesity epidemic. A closer reading of the report, however, provides a more nuanced picture. The CDC statistics show that from 1999-2000 to the present, obesity rates among women and girls have not increased.  The obesity rates of men have risen. In 1999 men were less obese than women. Now men have caught up. In 1999 boys and girls had the same obesity rates. Now boys are higher.

go to forbes.com