There is considerable evidence about the effective role that participation in the federal nutrition programs plays in alleviating food insecurity and poverty. For instance, children in households that participated in SNAP for 6 months are approximately one-third less likely to be food insecure than children in households recently approved for SNAP but not yet receiving it, based on a national sample of SNAP households with children. 37 WIC reduces the prevalence of household food insecurity by at least 20%, based on a national sample of children under the age of 5 who lived in households that were income-eligible for WIC. 38 Additional peer-reviewed studies demonstrate improvements in food security with school breakfast, 39 , 40 school lunch, 41 , 42 summer meals, 43 , 44 and CACFP 45 participation.
In terms of poverty, SNAP, school lunch, and WIC lifted 3.2 million, 1.4 million, and 302,000 people above the poverty line in 2018, respectively, based on Census Bureau data on poverty and income in the United States. 46 These national figures include approximately 1.3 million, 800,000, and 169,000 children, respectively.
Beyond their antihunger and antipoverty impacts, the federal nutrition programs are important health interventions for children in the short and long terms. For instance, children participating in SNAP are less likely to have obesity, underweight, developmental risk, nutritional risk, or fair or poor health status 47 , 48 ; less likely to be hospitalized 49 ; and their families are less likely to report health cost sacrifices. 48 Access to SNAP in utero and in early childhood also reduces the incidence of metabolic syndrome in adulthood and, for women, increases economic self-sufficiency and reports of being in good health in adulthood. 50
Prenatal or early childhood participation in WIC is associated with improved dietary intake and quality, 51 , 52 weight outcomes, 53 immunization rates, 54 , 55 cognitive development and school performance, 56 and birth outcomes (including a lower risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, and perinatal death). 57 , 58 WIC is cost-saving, too, investing $1 in prenatal WIC services saves about $2.48 in medical, educational, and productivity costs over a newborn's lifetime by preventing preterm birth, based on simulations of WIC participation in California. 59
Participation in CACFP, a program primarily targeting infants and young children, is associated with better dietary intake, 60 , 61 improved weight outcomes, 60 , 62 and a lower likelihood of being hospitalized or in fair or poor health. 63
For school-aged children, national and local studies demonstrate the value of school breakfast and lunch in improving student dietary intake and quality. 64 , 65 The programs support and improve student health, including weight-related outcomes such as overweight or obesity, 41 , 66 and program participation, particularly for school breakfast, is associated with improved school attendance and academic performance. 67 , 68 Furthermore, summer nutrition programs are an important strategy for preventing summer weight gain 69 , 70 and learning loss among school-aged children. 71 , 72 Similarly, the afterschool nutrition programs provide good nutrition and enrichment activities during out-of-school time periods. 73
In a 2015 policy statement, Promoting Food Security for All Children , the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that “pediatricians engage in efforts to mitigate food insecurity at the practice level and beyond,” including connecting families to and advocating for the federal nutrition programs. 1 To assist pediatricians in implementing the policy statement, AAP partnered with the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) to develop, Addressing Food Insecurity: A Toolkit for Pediatricians (available at https://frac.org/aaptoolkit ) . The toolkit provides a variety of tools and resources to help pediatricians and their practice teams engage in the following activities: screen, intervene, and advocate.
First, pediatricians should screen for food insecurity in their practice settings using the Hunger Vital Sign, a two-question, validated tool that is widely used in clinical and community-based settings across the nation. 74 , 75 Next, when a child or family screens positive for food insecurity risk in a practice setting, or otherwise shows an interest in or need for food resources, the health care team should intervene by connecting the family to emergency food resources and the federal nutrition programs to address short-term and long-term food needs, respectively. These connections can happen at the practice level, or through referrals or partnerships with external organizations. However, research shows that not every family who reports food insecurity will want to be connected to food resources, and, conversely, some families may not endorse food insecurity in a screening tool yet desire a referral for food resources. 76 The latter reinforces the importance of an open dialogue with patients. The toolkit provides more details on strategies for effectively addressing food insecurity in clinical settings.
While screening and intervening are critical actions, it also is essential for pediatricians to advocate for systems- and policy-level changes that address food insecurity and its root causes, such as poverty. “Upstream” strategies for tackling food insecurity include creating jobs (especially full-time jobs), raising wages, improving government income-support programs for struggling families, and improving access to and strengthening the federal nutrition programs. A more detailed discussion of the latter follows.
Given the effectiveness and importance of the federal nutrition programs to child health and development, pediatricians should engage in efforts to protect and strengthen these programs during program reauthorization and other legislative vehicles at the state and federal levels. These are important opportunities for pediatricians to weigh in and provide their unique expertise and perspective. Typically, every 5 years SNAP is reauthorized by Congress as part of the Farm Bill. The reauthorization establishes who is eligible for SNAP and addresses program access, benefit levels, and other matters. Similarly, WIC, school meals, and the other Child Nutrition Programs typically are reauthorized every 5 years by Congress as part of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act (CNR). CNR provides an opportunity to improve and strengthen the Child Nutrition Programs so that they better meet the needs of the nation's children in early care and education, preschool, school-based, and out-of-school time settings.
In addition to the reauthorization process, federal or state regulatory or administrative actions, budgets and annual appropriations can positively or negatively affect the programs and their participants. For instance, annual appropriations efforts secure funding to support WIC participation and the important targeted funding for breastfeeding education, research, peer counseling, and public health partnerships.
Pediatricians can engage in advocacy in a number of ways during program reauthorization and other legislative opportunities, such as writing an op-ed in their local newspaper about food insecurity and time-sensitive legislation, providing expert testimony to legislators about the consequences of food insecurity and the importance of the federal nutrition programs for their patients, or submitting written comments to government agencies during public comment periods on proposed rules that could harm or improve federal nutrition programs. The aforementioned toolkit provides additional information on and examples of advocacy actions for pediatricians.
Regardless of the legislative or administrative vehicle used to address or modify program eligibility, access, or benefits, key policy recommendations to protect and strengthen the federal nutrition programs are provided below.
Pediatricians can stay abreast of the latest news, research, and policy action on these and other pressing issues related to food insecurity by subscribing to policy updates from national health and advocacy groups, such as AAP, FRAC, or Children's HealthWatch.
Food insecurity has serious consequences on the health, development, and well-being of children, and has negative effects on the health care system and economy. Pediatricians can support and improve the health of their patients, as well as children across the nation, by addressing food insecurity and its root causes at the practice level and through policy advocacy.
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
H ave you ever been taught by a teacher who couldn’t teach? We have, and it wasn’t the result of them lacking motivation and desire. Neither was it them missing a teacher-training course module on Friday afternoon one semester. These teachers, although well-intended, should be no where near children and education. They might have always wanted to become a teacher, but they lack the natural talent to be on—even an average one.
It’s the same for managers and leaders. Just like bad teachers, we’ve all met too many examples of these during our careers—bullies, narcissists, micromanagers, and those who graduated cum laude in crass insensitivity. Insecurity lies at the heart of their incompetence, and they see their position as an exercise in authority and control, insisting and directing rather than delegating and trusting. They inflict their mediocrity on everyone in their care. We have both experienced leaders and managers who, in different ways, nearly succeeded in destroying our sense of self-worth and caused us to question our whole reason for being. With managers and leaders, the vast majority are unfit for their roles.
Research has shown that, from as long ago as 2014 , 82% of managers lack the talent to be effective in their jobs, and the evidence has become more robust since, where engagement data (arguably the best proxy for management and leadership effectiveness) has barely moved in 10 years, and in the last year has dropped significantly .
Given the motivations of so many to climb the corporate ladder into top management and leadership positions, there is a huge disconnect. Our research into top performing leadership and management targets this disconnect, and our analysis revealed the talents that the very best leaders and managers possessed. We call them the “Five Talents That Really Matter.” In them, we captured and described these characteristic traits and dispositions as follows: Setting Direction, Harnessing Energy, Exerting Pressure, Building Connectivity and Directing Traffic. Having distilled these five talents from studying the very best leaders, and then assessing everyone else (58k and counting), the vast majority fall well short. Only 4% score in the top quartile. Forty eight score in the bottom quartile. Mediocrity clearly rules.
Read More: What I Learned About Leadership from Leading Leaders
In our research, we have seen a disproportionate weighting of leaders in a narrow set of attributes and traits, such as action orientation (a predisposition to act before fully thinking things through) and relationship building (connecting to people because of a mutual liking of each other). As strong as these attributes are, they seem to come at the expense of other important traits and dispositions, such as strategic thinking. These two findings combine to produce outcomes that lead to ineffective execution and project missteps.
An example of this occurs when leaders, because of the relationships they build, find it hard to performance manage team members by holding them to account for sub-standard work. Rather than terminate these employees, weaker leaders never address the performance issues and poor behavior and unacceptable performance is tolerated.
Why, then, do so many mediocre managers and leaders get promoted to the highest positions where they fail in large numbers?
Let’s frame our answer by making one thing clear: Exceptional leadership is rare. Mediocre and poor leadership is the norm.
In fact, organizational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzik argues that confident, rather than competent , people are more likely to be appointed. We agree but would take his argument a stage further going to the source—to the very top of the corporate food chain. Decision makers are usually more swayed by candidates they like. In our research, we factored differences between the individuals in our database and found that “likeability” was the main reason why so many (otherwise substandard) individuals succeed in being promoted or appointed. They didn’t need to be liked by everyone, but they were liked by the interviewer who owned the decision.
The typical face-to-face interviews (that are featured in nearly every selection process intended to evaluate external candidates) are a poor method for cutting through the congenial and charismatic fraud. Of the 48% of leaders sitting in the bottom quartile of our database, 31% measured strongest in relational connectivity—presenting themselves as positive, upbeat, friendly, and socially adept leaders, yet lacking so many other critically important aspects of leadership, without which success is beyond reach.
The problem is made worse by the fact that the constellation of leadership talents essential to top leadership performance are extremely difficult to detect from resumes and interviews. We also see the overwhelming majority of companies having no clue about identifying the characteristics of leadership that matter or developing questions to assess these characteristics accurately. CEO’s and hiring executives further argue that no candidate is perfect, often as an excuse to explain the deficiencies they see in the candidate in front of them, whom they then find poor reasons to appoint. When you don’t know what you are looking for, it’s remarkable how many people meet that standard.
From the candidate perspective applying for a top leadership position, the entire charade is eminently predictable and therefore easy to prepare for. While CEO’s and top executives wrack their brains to come up with difficult and esoteric questions, candidates know they’ll be asked to describe a difficult situation they faced and how they dealt with it, a tricky employee and how they “cured” them, a negative situation and how they turned it around, a time when they started in a minority of one, but still succeeded—the list goes on. Even though hiring managers also know this, they persist anyway.
Every failed executive came highly recommended by a search firm and received the support of referees vouching for their capabilities. Even the candidates who organizations know the most about—internal candidates—fail at a rate that is staggering . Crucially, if we conclude one thing about human judgment in candidate selection, it is that it’s exceptionally poor. Yet ask any executive to describe their hiring effectiveness, and the worst response we hear is that an executive is “pretty good.”
Hiring managers, recognizing these valid criticisms, make the most banal statement of all: “I don’t place an over-reliance on any one factor, I try to balance them all.” The average of 10 inaccurate data sources is an inaccurate conclusion, with the degree of inaccuracy magnified. Looking for the Five Talents not only has high validity, but it also ensures a very high level of fairness. It is fair by sex, race, disability, age, country of origin, first language, as well as industry, size of organization, and market maturity.
We all talk about the importance of getting hiring decisions right, but practices to achieve this are flawed. Placing high weighting on imperfect sources has created the leadership challenges that most organizations face—mediocre performance, lack of demographic diversity, too much focus on functional excellence at the expense of critical leaders, and an over-investment in management and leadership development (through programs and coaching) that fail to move the needle. It’s time for organizations to upgrade their entire hiring process. That begins by acknowledging that their current approaches are failing.
Contact us at [email protected]
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
The main cause of food insecurity is poverty. While mobility, transportation, and car-centricity are still issues that are deeply connected with poverty, geographic access, as stated by the USDA in a 2014 report, is not "associated with the percentage of households that [are] food insecure.".
People experiencing food insecurity are more likely to suffer from chronic conditions such as diabetes, blood pressure problems, anemia, and similar issues (Compromises and Coping Strategies para. 5). Without enough energy and health, they cannot improve their life quality. Example, Narrative, or Testimony: Quality food is an essential ...
Food insecurity is defined as a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.1 In 2020, 13.8 million households were food insecure at some time during the year.2 Food insecurity does not necessarily cause hunger,i but hunger is a possible outcome of food insecurity.3.
Food insecurity is an official term from the USDA. It's when people don't have enough to eat and don't know where their next meal will come from. It's a big problem in the United States, where over 47 million million people, including 14 million million children, experience food insecurity annually. However, many more people, including millions ...
The spike in food insecurity during the pandemic increased reliance on food banks and pantries to supplement family food budgets and federal benefits that fell short of need. 48 But as food costs ...
We created the short video Food Insecurity in the U.S. — Problems, Programs, and Policy to introduce people to the root causes of food insecurity in the U.S. and ways they can advocate for efective anti-hunger policies. This guide will help you use this video to spark discussions with small groups of volunteers, students, or others, and get ...
More than 35 million Americans suffered from hunger in 2019 and the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 increased the number of people who face food insecurity up to 42 million (Feeding America, 2021). To put it more explicitly, every sixth person in the US has no food to eat at least once a year (McMillan, n.d.) These figures are shocking because the ...
Food insecurity in America is eminent when children are facing a devastating shortage of adequate food that is nutritious and safe for human consumption. Food insecurity in the United States also becomes eminent when the elderly, the ethnic minority, and the rural people, lack access to food of the right quality and quantity, due to their ...
Food insecurity act as both cause and effect, due to lack of income and access food insecurity prevails and, in another way, due to food insecurity, violence and instability occur in a country.
Consequences of Food Insecurity. The consequences of food insecurity are far-reaching and impact personal and social development on multiple levels. One of the most immediate and visible effects is malnutrition. Individuals facing food insecurity often have limited access to a balanced diet, leading to deficiencies in essential nutrients ...
13 essay samples found. Food Insecurity refers to the lack of reliable access to sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food. Essays could delve into the causes, effects, and possible solutions to food insecurity both in the United States and globally, addressing issues like poverty, agricultural practices, and climate change.
However, there are still more than one billion food-insecure people in the world with an additional two billion people prone to hidden hunger or malnutrition caused by the deficiency of micronutrients and protein (FAO, 2016; Onwonga, 2019). ... Food Security Essay. (2023, February 24). Edubirdie. Retrieved September 19, 2024, from https ...
The four main dimensions of food security: Physical availability of food: Food availability addresses the "supply side" of food security and is determined by the level of food production, stock levels and net trade. Economic and physical access to food: An adequate supply of food at the national or international level does not in itself ...
Food insecurity and the lack of access to affordable nutritious food are associated with increased risk for multiple chronic health conditions such as diabetes , obesity, heart disease, mental health disorders and other chronic diseases . In 2020, almost 15% of U.S. households were considered food insecure at some point in time, meaning not all ...
Food insecurity is defined as "the lack of access to enough food to ensure adequate nutrition."1 The Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ERS) reported that 14.6% of US households were food insecure during at least some portion of 2008 (up 11.1% from 2007), the highest levels recorded since monitoring began in 1995.2 Food insecurity is a concern of under consumption and ...
This year, acute food insecurity is projected to reach a new peak, surpassing the food crisis experienced in 2007-2008. A combination of factors—including greater poverty and supply chain disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, and high commodity prices—has increased food and nutrition insecurity.
Introduction. Food is one of the fundamental needs of human. Food security is the ability to access food by those who need it. Every household is termed as secured food wise if it has access to safe and enough food hence freedom from hunger. The World Food Organization describes this security as access to nutritious, safe and sufficient food to ...
17 million U.S. households were food insecure in 2022. That's 3.5 million more than the prior year. Families with children and people of color experienced higher than average rates of food insecurity.
Download the latest brief on rising food insecurity and World Bank responses. Since the last update on May 30, 2024, the agricultural, cereal, and export price indices closed 8%, 10%, and 9% lower, respectively. A fall in cocoa (16%) and cotton (11%) prices drove the decrease in the export price index. Maize and wheat prices closed 8% and 23% ...
Food insecurity, even for short time periods, is associated with detrimental physiological and psychological impacts on college students. Compared with students who are food secure, students who are food insecure have been associated with having poor dietary quality, poor physical activity habits, and greater odds for obesity.1-4 Food insecurity in college students has also been associated ...
Food insecurity is an economic condition, meaning that it is driven primarily by lack of money and other critical resources. The following section outlines drivers that have been directly ... of food pantry use on either short-term measures (e.g., food budget shortfalls and food tradeoffs), or longer-term measures (e.g., chronic
of monitoring and statistical analysis of the food security of the U.S. population: (1) food secure, (2) food insecure without hunger, and (3) food insecure with hunger. The USDA estimates, published in a series of annual reports, are widely used by government agencies, the media, and advocacy groups to report the extent of food insecurity and hunger in the United States, to monitor progress ...
Pediatricians can and should play a critical role in addressing food insecurity, a health-related social need with harmful impacts on child health, development, and well-being. 1 Food insecurity is a term defined by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that indicates that the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, or the ability to acquire such food, is limited or uncertain ...
Having distilled these five talents from studying the very best leaders, and then assessing everyone else (58k and counting), the vast majority fall well short. Only 4% score in the top quartile ...