Hunger in America: Meals missed per day?

December 26, 2007 6:16 AM

How many people in America miss one or more meals per day because they can't afford to put food on the table? Any authoritative (citation) answer / statistic appreciated.

Of many available hunger / poverty / food-insecurity statistics, none provides an answer to the question in these terms. Lots of stats for "food-insecure" at SOME point during the year. I'd prefer an answer that did more than take existing millions-per-year numbers and then divide by 365 days.

posted by lasitter to health & fitness (3 comments total)

Darn. Should have checked Wikipedia first:
Second paragraph here pretty much gives me the statistic I'm looking for.
posted by lasitter at 6:31 AM on December 26, 2007

The Hunger Almanac has tons of information. Self link of sorts.
posted by zerobyproxy at 6:37 AM on December 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Maybe the full text of this study has more details:

Frequency and Duration of Food Insecurity and Hunger in US Households:
About two thirds of households classified as food insecure by the federal food security scale experience the condition as recurring, and around one fifth experience these conditions as frequent or chronic. The monthly prevalence of hunger is about 60% of the annual prevalence, and the daily prevalence is about 13% to 18% of the annual prevalence.
posted by Gyan at 6:42 AM on December 26, 2007