Hunger in America

Working toward a better America.

At the end of every day, 17 million children go to bed hungry. As a part of the world’s most prosperous country, Sodexo and the Sodexo Foundation see this as an unacceptable fact and have vowed to help make America a hunger-free nation. Through the efforts of our Heroes of Everyday Life, STOP Hunger Scholarship recipients, countless other volunteers, and programs such as Feeding Our Future^®, we are making a positive impact in the fight against hunger. But as the facts show, there is much more work to be done.

• Prevalence rates of food insecurity remain at the highest recorded levels since 1995.
• 50 million people in the U.S. are at-risk of hunger – including 17 million children.
• Children who are malnourished or hungry are at greater risk for failing in school and at work, marking them for a lifetime.
• One in four children in America is at-risk of hunger.
• The National School Lunch Program provides lunches to an average of 31.3 million children each school day.
• The percentage of households with food-insecure children is the highest at 19.3 percent for female-headed households.
• The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) serves an average 9.1 million participants per month.

Nord, M., Coleman-Jensen, A., Andrews, M., and Carlson, S. “Household Food Security in the United States, 2009.” USDA Economic Research Report (ERR-108). 2010.

Learn more about the issues facing hungry Americans from Feeding America's Hunger in America 2010 Report. 

.