Dear President,

Everyday there is an issue that affects millions of children in our country. It’s called childhood hunger.

There are children in this country that deal with obesity, but there are also others that don’t get enough food at home. According to the USDA, 13.1 million children under 18 live in households where they don’t have access to enough nutritious food necessary for a healthy life. This can be harmful to young children because of the long-term effects that this might have on them.

Good nutrition is important for a child’s physical and mental health. If they don’t get enough food, children from ages 0 to 3 may be slow in developing language and motor skills. When kids reach school age, and they don’t have enough to eat, they are not able to focus or learn during the school days. Proper nutrition is important for all children’s development.

Childhood hunger affects a range of children from many different areas in the country. In 2014, the top four states with the highest rate of lacking food were Mississippi, New Mexico, Arizona, and Arkansas. Some of the reasons for this are the families don’t have enough money, or the parents aren’t home to feed them because they are working.

A solution for this is having the schools serve nutritious breakfast and noon meals. This way these children get to have at least two good meals a day. Another way is setting up programs in the community to help give food to the ones that need it. There are communities that have a program called Sack Pack or Snack Pack. Volunteers pack food for children to take home with them on the weekends. This is something that more areas in our country need to start doing to help with this problem.

It would fix the problem by giving food to kids if their parents don’t have enough money. Like I said in the beginning, 13.1 million kids per day don’t have enough food when they come home or they go to school hungry. I hope this is something you will take into consideration.

Sincerely,

Jenna