Saying that "too many families don't know where they're going to get their next meal" and "there are too many empty chairs around the kitchen table because a loved one was taken by heart disease, diabetes, or other diet oriented diseases," President Joe Biden announced in early May that the White House would host a conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.
In his announcement, the President said "I'm committed to taking bold steps that are going to help end hunger and enable everyone, everyone to have access to affordable, healthy food and safe places to be physically active."
The organization Feeding America notes that close to a million people in Arizona (almost 300,000 of them children) are going hungry every day.
In the United States as a whole, 38 million people (12 million children) are food insecure.
According to a White House Press Release, this will be the first time since the Nixon Administration (1969) that a conference has been convened on this vital issue where many Americans deal daily with food insecurity.
Then, as EJ Dionne noted in a recent Washington Post column, hunger was a bipartisan issue with Senators George McGovern and Bob Dole (two future Presidential Nominees) creating the modern food stamp program that greatly reduced starvation in the country.
More work needs to be done.
The White House Press release noted that the Biden/Harris Administration has set a goal of ending hunger for all Americans and increasing healthy eating and physical activity by 2030.
Commenting on the conference, LD 18 State House Candidate Nancy Gutierrez relayed:
"I am glad to see that President Biden will begin to address the hunger and nutrition crisis in our country by holding a Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. As a public school teacher, I see students whose only meal is provided by the school system. I encourage President Biden to fund our free breakfast and lunch programs into the 2022-2023 school year. No one in this country should go hungry. I hope that this conference also focuses on food deserts and a lack of funded physical education programs in our schools. A conference is a step in the right direction, but we will need funding for education and community outreach in order to tackle these issues and help all Americans have more equitable distribution of healthy food markets in all neighborhoods."
On the Baby Formula Front
On a related note, the United States military, in the Biden/Harris Administration attempt to help alleviate the baby formula shortage has just flown 75,000 pounds of baby formula, under the Operation Fly Formula directive, from Europe to Indiana.
In a Sunday press release, the White House announced that a second flight under Operation Fly Formula has been approved for later this week and will land at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
The Administration, in its invocation of The Defense Production Act, sped up orders of key supplies for baby formula manufacturers Abbott and Reckitt.
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