The American Academy of Pediatrics is urging pediatricians to screen all patients for food insecurity and to refer parents to appropriate agencies so children do not go hungry. Sixteen million children live in homes where there is consistently not enough food, according to USDA. Those children get sick more often, have poorer overall health and are hospitalized more frequently than peers who are adequately nourished. The academy said that pediatricians might identify hungry children by posing two questions to parents: whether, in the last year, they worried that their food would run out before they had money to buy more, and whether the groceries they bought lasted until they had more money available to buy more. The answers to these questions identify 97% of families that are insecure about food.
Source: New York Times, 10/23/15
No comments:
Post a Comment