Remember way back when President Obama told people that it was maybe a good idea for them to turn off the teevees and disconnect themselves from the idiot ramblings of the political press, a rough beast with a bottomless hunger for antic narratives and useless gossip?
Maybe Obama should have asked his two top advisers to stop feeding the beast themselves, to spare all of us some grief.
More...
March 9, 2010
March 8, 2010
Empowering women and their communities through nutrition security
The theme for this year's International Women's Day: "Equal rights, equal opportunities: progress for all," recognizes the importance women play in their communities from being the essential caretaker in almost every society in the world to leading the growth of small businesses in areas such as Africa. At the same time, women are also the most likely to sacrifice their health and needs for those of their families.
Across the developing world, women are disproportionately affected by malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency or "hidden hunger". Hidden hunger leads to impaired cognitive and physical development, increase mortality rates, and leaves the individual more prone to chronic illnesses.
More...
Across the developing world, women are disproportionately affected by malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency or "hidden hunger". Hidden hunger leads to impaired cognitive and physical development, increase mortality rates, and leaves the individual more prone to chronic illnesses.
More...
March 7, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 14, 2010
January 20, 2010
Intuitive Eating for the New Year: Seven Steps for Connecting With Your Body’s Hunger Cues
At the end of every year, we start making lists of all the things we hope to change or achieve during our next trip around the sun. For most of us, "eat right" or "lose weight" occur with dismaying regularity, year after year. As obsessed as we are with food and diets, you'd think we'd be thin and healthy by now. So why, around the end of every January, are we cursing ourselves for lapsing from the plan?
The fact is, diet tips, rules and tricks won't work if we're ignoring the mental and emotional side of eating. Why do we still overeat -- or eat the wrong things? Most of the time, when we're craving cookies, we're really hungry for love, sex, friendship, peace, a sense of purpose and meaning. And when you're gripped by that kind of hunger, all the tips and tricks in the world won't save you.
More...
The fact is, diet tips, rules and tricks won't work if we're ignoring the mental and emotional side of eating. Why do we still overeat -- or eat the wrong things? Most of the time, when we're craving cookies, we're really hungry for love, sex, friendship, peace, a sense of purpose and meaning. And when you're gripped by that kind of hunger, all the tips and tricks in the world won't save you.
More...
December 11, 2009
Are Our Minds Going The Way Of Our Waists?
The average waistline of people in the developed world has increased
400% in 25 years, with three-quarters of adults now overweight or obese. For the first time in history, there are literally more people overweight than there are starving.
One part of the problem is the food distribution system. In the absence of any oversight, the industrial food system has evolved to give people exactly what they want, and exactly what they don't need - the immediate gratification of high-calorific food. My breakfast muffin on a recent flight across the US was so insanely sugar-rich, a few crumbs of it would sweeten your coffee.
The other part of the problem is that our brain has terribly weak circuitry for inhibiting impulses, especially impulses that look delicious. The brain network involved in impulse control sits inside the smallest, most easily overwhelmed region of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. Like our limited ability to do complex calculations in our heads, impulse control is a limited resource that tires with each use.
Put these two issues together, cheap resources available everywhere and poor self-control, and you get a weight problem literally of epidemic proportions. The trouble is, this same phenomenon may be happening with our minds. If current trend continues, we could see millions of people's minds becoming as unhealthy and dysfunctional as their stomachs. The reason? Social media.
Social Issues Are Primary
My hyper-sugary muffin contained what is sometimes called 'empty calories'. Empty calories make you feel better short term, but your brain then craves more, and there's no nutritional goodness like this is in more complex foods. I have sense that we are rapidly moving toward giving people 24/7, easy access to 'empty neural calories'. These calories, in the form of perceived social connectivity, increase the overall stimulation of the brain, but may not do much to make our brain more integrated, adaptive or functional. In fact, just like sugar, some types of neural stimulation have you wanting more and more, without ever feeling satisfied. The result can be a reduction in healthy neural functioning.
The reason for this comes down to the way the brain processes social interactions. Social connections, literally feeling you are in a positive social exchange with another person, are classed as primary rewards by the brain, something essential for survival. As a result, your brain craves social connections using similar circuitry to how it craves sugary food.
Both sugary foods and positive social connections activate the reward circuits activate the reward circuits in the ventral striatum, releasing dopamine into the prefrontal cortex.
One way to understand this is to explore what happens in the absence of social connections. University of Chicago social neuroscientist John Cacioppo led a study of 229 people between 50 and 68 years old, finding a 30-point difference in blood pressure between those who experienced loneliness and those with healthy social connections. Loneliness, the study showed, could significantly increase the risk of death from stroke and heart disease.
As Cacioppo tried to understand the data, he realized that loneliness might be more important than society generally realizes. "Loneliness generates a threat response," Cacioppo explains, "the same as pain, thirst, hunger, or fear." Being connected to others in a positive way, feeling a sense of relatedness, is a basic need for human beings. An absence of glucose in the blood occurs as hunger, which makes you feel anxious until resolved with a good feed. The absence of social connections also generates a type of hunger, it's a hunger otherwise known as 'loneliness' that also makes you feel anxious until it's resolved.
It's this hunger that starts to explain the incredible success of organizations like Facebook and Twitter. When you connect with people online, you're getting a little zing in your reward center, which makes you want to stay there and keep zinging. Don't blame Facebook - like the food distribution system, they have just worked out what people most want, and are giving it to them as richly and intensely as possible. Social media sites are like an online candy store for your brain.
Empty neural calories
So far, so good. The trouble is, like a syrupy muffin, connecting socially online may be like eating empty calories. The circuitry activated when you connect online is the 'seeking' circuitry of dopamine. Yet when we connect with people online, we don't tend to get the oxytocin or seratonin calming reward that happens when we bond with someone in real time, when our circuits resonate with real-time shared emotions and experiences. As a result, you want more and more social connections. On Twitter, you rarely get to feel satisfied and 'full' the way you might if you chatted in person with 50 people at a conference (after which you'd want nothing more to do with people for a while as your circuits recovered.)
This problem was further explained in a story in Slate magazine.
In summary, there's a circuitry for 'seeking' and a circuitry for 'liking'. The 'liking' response settles down the excitement of the 'seeking' circuitry. Without the 'liking' response, we end up looking like the rat that keeps pressing the level over and over to get a little dopamine hit, forgetting all about food and rest.
To the brain, simply receiving new information tends to activate the reward circuitry: information itself can be rewarding, which prompted neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer to coin the term 'information craving.' Thus people can easily become addicted to getting information quickly and often. The social circuitry does the same thing, only sometimes more intensely. One new study, (still under review) showed that a computer saying 'good job' in an experiment activated people's reward circuitry more intensely than financial rewards.
Too much social seeking isn't good for you
The trouble with such ready access to empty social rewards is that we just keep wanting more. As this reward-seeking circuit fires up, our ability to hold more subtle ideas in mind diminishes: intense activation of the limbic system, which fires up with strong rewards or threats, results in the de-activation of prefrontal regions needed or executive control. An overabundance of dopamine, while it feels good on one level as sugar does, creates a mental hyperactivity that reduces your capacity for deeper focus. It is also likely to reduce one's ability to have more subtle insights, the kind required to solve complex problems. The ability to have insights is linked to one's capacity to notice 'weak activations,' which can be easily overwhelmed by the intense neural activity of a dopamine rush.
I am sensing a dramatic upswing in people's sense of overwhelm in the last three years. I don't think it's just the uncertainty of the economy. It's social media. Like delicious deserts, it's hard to say 'no' to. The brain loves it so (my brain included). Getting any work done these days with Twitter on in the background is like putting a 10 year-old child in a candy story and telling them they can't touch anything; they will be constantly distracted. What happens when you're distracted a lot? Your IQ goes down, one study (while funded by a tech company, was still a study) showed that leaving a communication device always on drops IQ by 15 points for men, same as taking up marijuana or losing a night's sleep.
If your job is to stay 'high' all the time and make tons of new connections, like a reporter on an entertainment show, then this hyperactive, dopamine-high state of mind isn't a problem - it can actually help. But if you're trying to focus, do any deeper thinking, or perhaps learn something, it's not such a good thing. Consider this from a blogger on Psychology Today.
A study this year by psychology students at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Ga., found that the more time young people spend on Facebook, the more likely they are to have lower grades and weaker study habits. Heavy Facebook users show signs of being more gregarious, but they are also more likely to be anxious, hostile or depressed. Almost a quarter of today's teens check Facebook more than 10 times a day, according to a 2009 survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group that monitors media's impact on families.
Self-regulation is a limited resource
All this wouldn't be a problem if our brain had stronger self-regulation systems. While people should in theory be able to regulate their own behavior, our self-regulation circuits are built out of the newest, most easily overwhelmed and easily tired region of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. We only have one circuit for inhibiting, which if used up for an inhibitory processes (like trying to diet, or not say the wrong thing) becomes diminished when used again. With ready, cheap and easy access to such immediate rewards, it's very tempting to be distracted, and very hard not to. And if you're tired or hungry, it may take more effort to inhibit a distraction like twitter than to just lose yourself in it - you brain's braking system is metabolically expensive.
The good news is it's possible to step out of this paradigm. The bad news is it's about as hard as practicing eating well. It takes discipline. It takes learning to switch off regularly from social media the way an overweight person has to learn not to walk past a fast food outlet. We need to reduce the likelihood of distraction, not beat ourselves up for our distractability, which is only human after all. Limiting yourself to a specific amount of time on social media, while not easy, is one good plan to focus on.
The mental pyramid?
As a society, we should be studying the effects of new technologies more deeply, and making people aware of how they impact brain functioning. I am not saying we should regulate internet start ups, but we should be more proactive about understanding emerging technologies that take over people's attention. If nothing else, to ensure our children develop the right habits.
With food, there are worldwide efforts to educate kids about the 'food pyramid'. The food pyramid essentially says it's okay to eat cakes and sweets, but only one daily serving, and you need many more servings of fruits and vegetables in comparison. While we're not doing a great job on the food education front, at least we're trying. When it comes to the internet, it's a free-for-all, with no education or awareness of what a good mix of mental activities might be required for a healthy mind. I propose that we need to start thinking about the mental health pyramid. In the end it's going to be some combination of focused mental time (perhaps less than we'd like), mental resting time, plus allowing just a small serving daily of social hyper-connectivity.
It's time to develop a concerted approach to understanding the impact of these new technologies on ourselves, and on future generations of adults. Let's do this before we find ourselves battling an epidemic with even wider reaching implications.
For more on how your brain functions during everyday activities, see my new book 'Your Brain at Work'.
400% in 25 years, with three-quarters of adults now overweight or obese. For the first time in history, there are literally more people overweight than there are starving.
One part of the problem is the food distribution system. In the absence of any oversight, the industrial food system has evolved to give people exactly what they want, and exactly what they don't need - the immediate gratification of high-calorific food. My breakfast muffin on a recent flight across the US was so insanely sugar-rich, a few crumbs of it would sweeten your coffee.
The other part of the problem is that our brain has terribly weak circuitry for inhibiting impulses, especially impulses that look delicious. The brain network involved in impulse control sits inside the smallest, most easily overwhelmed region of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. Like our limited ability to do complex calculations in our heads, impulse control is a limited resource that tires with each use.
Put these two issues together, cheap resources available everywhere and poor self-control, and you get a weight problem literally of epidemic proportions. The trouble is, this same phenomenon may be happening with our minds. If current trend continues, we could see millions of people's minds becoming as unhealthy and dysfunctional as their stomachs. The reason? Social media.
Social Issues Are Primary
My hyper-sugary muffin contained what is sometimes called 'empty calories'. Empty calories make you feel better short term, but your brain then craves more, and there's no nutritional goodness like this is in more complex foods. I have sense that we are rapidly moving toward giving people 24/7, easy access to 'empty neural calories'. These calories, in the form of perceived social connectivity, increase the overall stimulation of the brain, but may not do much to make our brain more integrated, adaptive or functional. In fact, just like sugar, some types of neural stimulation have you wanting more and more, without ever feeling satisfied. The result can be a reduction in healthy neural functioning.
The reason for this comes down to the way the brain processes social interactions. Social connections, literally feeling you are in a positive social exchange with another person, are classed as primary rewards by the brain, something essential for survival. As a result, your brain craves social connections using similar circuitry to how it craves sugary food.
Both sugary foods and positive social connections activate the reward circuits activate the reward circuits in the ventral striatum, releasing dopamine into the prefrontal cortex.
One way to understand this is to explore what happens in the absence of social connections. University of Chicago social neuroscientist John Cacioppo led a study of 229 people between 50 and 68 years old, finding a 30-point difference in blood pressure between those who experienced loneliness and those with healthy social connections. Loneliness, the study showed, could significantly increase the risk of death from stroke and heart disease.
As Cacioppo tried to understand the data, he realized that loneliness might be more important than society generally realizes. "Loneliness generates a threat response," Cacioppo explains, "the same as pain, thirst, hunger, or fear." Being connected to others in a positive way, feeling a sense of relatedness, is a basic need for human beings. An absence of glucose in the blood occurs as hunger, which makes you feel anxious until resolved with a good feed. The absence of social connections also generates a type of hunger, it's a hunger otherwise known as 'loneliness' that also makes you feel anxious until it's resolved.
It's this hunger that starts to explain the incredible success of organizations like Facebook and Twitter. When you connect with people online, you're getting a little zing in your reward center, which makes you want to stay there and keep zinging. Don't blame Facebook - like the food distribution system, they have just worked out what people most want, and are giving it to them as richly and intensely as possible. Social media sites are like an online candy store for your brain.
Empty neural calories
So far, so good. The trouble is, like a syrupy muffin, connecting socially online may be like eating empty calories. The circuitry activated when you connect online is the 'seeking' circuitry of dopamine. Yet when we connect with people online, we don't tend to get the oxytocin or seratonin calming reward that happens when we bond with someone in real time, when our circuits resonate with real-time shared emotions and experiences. As a result, you want more and more social connections. On Twitter, you rarely get to feel satisfied and 'full' the way you might if you chatted in person with 50 people at a conference (after which you'd want nothing more to do with people for a while as your circuits recovered.)
This problem was further explained in a story in Slate magazine.
In summary, there's a circuitry for 'seeking' and a circuitry for 'liking'. The 'liking' response settles down the excitement of the 'seeking' circuitry. Without the 'liking' response, we end up looking like the rat that keeps pressing the level over and over to get a little dopamine hit, forgetting all about food and rest.
To the brain, simply receiving new information tends to activate the reward circuitry: information itself can be rewarding, which prompted neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer to coin the term 'information craving.' Thus people can easily become addicted to getting information quickly and often. The social circuitry does the same thing, only sometimes more intensely. One new study, (still under review) showed that a computer saying 'good job' in an experiment activated people's reward circuitry more intensely than financial rewards.
Too much social seeking isn't good for you
The trouble with such ready access to empty social rewards is that we just keep wanting more. As this reward-seeking circuit fires up, our ability to hold more subtle ideas in mind diminishes: intense activation of the limbic system, which fires up with strong rewards or threats, results in the de-activation of prefrontal regions needed or executive control. An overabundance of dopamine, while it feels good on one level as sugar does, creates a mental hyperactivity that reduces your capacity for deeper focus. It is also likely to reduce one's ability to have more subtle insights, the kind required to solve complex problems. The ability to have insights is linked to one's capacity to notice 'weak activations,' which can be easily overwhelmed by the intense neural activity of a dopamine rush.
I am sensing a dramatic upswing in people's sense of overwhelm in the last three years. I don't think it's just the uncertainty of the economy. It's social media. Like delicious deserts, it's hard to say 'no' to. The brain loves it so (my brain included). Getting any work done these days with Twitter on in the background is like putting a 10 year-old child in a candy story and telling them they can't touch anything; they will be constantly distracted. What happens when you're distracted a lot? Your IQ goes down, one study (while funded by a tech company, was still a study) showed that leaving a communication device always on drops IQ by 15 points for men, same as taking up marijuana or losing a night's sleep.
If your job is to stay 'high' all the time and make tons of new connections, like a reporter on an entertainment show, then this hyperactive, dopamine-high state of mind isn't a problem - it can actually help. But if you're trying to focus, do any deeper thinking, or perhaps learn something, it's not such a good thing. Consider this from a blogger on Psychology Today.
A study this year by psychology students at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Ga., found that the more time young people spend on Facebook, the more likely they are to have lower grades and weaker study habits. Heavy Facebook users show signs of being more gregarious, but they are also more likely to be anxious, hostile or depressed. Almost a quarter of today's teens check Facebook more than 10 times a day, according to a 2009 survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group that monitors media's impact on families.
Self-regulation is a limited resource
All this wouldn't be a problem if our brain had stronger self-regulation systems. While people should in theory be able to regulate their own behavior, our self-regulation circuits are built out of the newest, most easily overwhelmed and easily tired region of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. We only have one circuit for inhibiting, which if used up for an inhibitory processes (like trying to diet, or not say the wrong thing) becomes diminished when used again. With ready, cheap and easy access to such immediate rewards, it's very tempting to be distracted, and very hard not to. And if you're tired or hungry, it may take more effort to inhibit a distraction like twitter than to just lose yourself in it - you brain's braking system is metabolically expensive.
The good news is it's possible to step out of this paradigm. The bad news is it's about as hard as practicing eating well. It takes discipline. It takes learning to switch off regularly from social media the way an overweight person has to learn not to walk past a fast food outlet. We need to reduce the likelihood of distraction, not beat ourselves up for our distractability, which is only human after all. Limiting yourself to a specific amount of time on social media, while not easy, is one good plan to focus on.
The mental pyramid?
As a society, we should be studying the effects of new technologies more deeply, and making people aware of how they impact brain functioning. I am not saying we should regulate internet start ups, but we should be more proactive about understanding emerging technologies that take over people's attention. If nothing else, to ensure our children develop the right habits.
With food, there are worldwide efforts to educate kids about the 'food pyramid'. The food pyramid essentially says it's okay to eat cakes and sweets, but only one daily serving, and you need many more servings of fruits and vegetables in comparison. While we're not doing a great job on the food education front, at least we're trying. When it comes to the internet, it's a free-for-all, with no education or awareness of what a good mix of mental activities might be required for a healthy mind. I propose that we need to start thinking about the mental health pyramid. In the end it's going to be some combination of focused mental time (perhaps less than we'd like), mental resting time, plus allowing just a small serving daily of social hyper-connectivity.
It's time to develop a concerted approach to understanding the impact of these new technologies on ourselves, and on future generations of adults. Let's do this before we find ourselves battling an epidemic with even wider reaching implications.
For more on how your brain functions during everyday activities, see my new book 'Your Brain at Work'.
December 10, 2009
Music, Hunger and Phoebe
Music can elicit many different kinds of responses in people. For me, the response was charitable. Music is my true love and as an aspiring filmmaker that is not something to easily admit to. I've flown across the Atlantic to experience the greatness of a song. Great music can be powerful, enough so that I think it can help feed the many who are hungry in New York. My inspiration for using music to feed the hungry came from a 5-year-old girl from San Francisco who asked a very loving question: "What can we do to help?"
The story of young Phoebe from San Francisco is pretty amazing. I I first came across her story on the Huffington Post, days after my birthday, and only months later would I have an answer to her question. Phobe, on her way to preschool, saw a homeless man holding a sign asking for food and started asking questions. Questions so thoughtful, that they would be surprising even if they came from adults. Phoebe's questions eventually led to her feeding, in her words, "Seventeen-thousand something" people. The story and video is something not to be missed if you haven't seen it already.
So "What can we do to help?" I guess when you read a story like that, about a little girl making a difference and you know you've done nothing that like that, it makes you reassess your life. I've always been the volunteer type, helping out at soup kitchens, the Salvation Army, the Christmas in April program, even at a suicide hotline but I haven't done much of anything the last couple of years. So hearing Phoebe's story inspired me months later to come up with an idea called Music vs Hunger. The concept is nothing new, have a concert and ask the audience for donations and to bring canned food to the show, but this idea has a very New York sound to it. Anyone who knows about indie music knows about what's going on in New York right now. Bands are flocking here from everywhere, trying to make a name for themselves. Not unlike Greenwich Village's jazz era, music in New York is at a special moment. Every night, in small cramped spaces throughout the city, music is being made or played. I've seen so many amazing bands and heard such great music and I can't get enough. And because it's such a big part of my life, I want to somehow combine my passion for music with the need to help.
The numbers are staggering: one in five people rely on a soup kitchen or food bank in New York City, and The Food Bank for NYC is reporting that 93 percent of food pantries and soup kitchens in the city have seen an increase in first-time visitors over the past year. With unemployment at record highs, I think it's important that we don't let people fall through the cracks and become unnecessarily hungry. Music vs Hunger's goal is to use the draw of great music, with exciting up-and-coming bands, to make sure those who are hungry are not forgotten.
Music vs Hunger's first show was in late November. Featuring three great bands HolidayHoliday, the Senors of Marseille and (appropriately) Food Stamps, the show raised $70 and collected about 50 non-perishable food items. I think we can do much better, but just $1 donated to The Food Bank of NYC can provide 5 meals. So our first show helped feed more than 300 people.
Music vs Hunger's second show is on December 22 at the great Cake Shop on 152 Ludlow here in New York. More Info can be found on our Facebook event page.
The story of young Phoebe from San Francisco is pretty amazing. I I first came across her story on the Huffington Post, days after my birthday, and only months later would I have an answer to her question. Phobe, on her way to preschool, saw a homeless man holding a sign asking for food and started asking questions. Questions so thoughtful, that they would be surprising even if they came from adults. Phoebe's questions eventually led to her feeding, in her words, "Seventeen-thousand something" people. The story and video is something not to be missed if you haven't seen it already.
So "What can we do to help?" I guess when you read a story like that, about a little girl making a difference and you know you've done nothing that like that, it makes you reassess your life. I've always been the volunteer type, helping out at soup kitchens, the Salvation Army, the Christmas in April program, even at a suicide hotline but I haven't done much of anything the last couple of years. So hearing Phoebe's story inspired me months later to come up with an idea called Music vs Hunger. The concept is nothing new, have a concert and ask the audience for donations and to bring canned food to the show, but this idea has a very New York sound to it. Anyone who knows about indie music knows about what's going on in New York right now. Bands are flocking here from everywhere, trying to make a name for themselves. Not unlike Greenwich Village's jazz era, music in New York is at a special moment. Every night, in small cramped spaces throughout the city, music is being made or played. I've seen so many amazing bands and heard such great music and I can't get enough. And because it's such a big part of my life, I want to somehow combine my passion for music with the need to help.
The numbers are staggering: one in five people rely on a soup kitchen or food bank in New York City, and The Food Bank for NYC is reporting that 93 percent of food pantries and soup kitchens in the city have seen an increase in first-time visitors over the past year. With unemployment at record highs, I think it's important that we don't let people fall through the cracks and become unnecessarily hungry. Music vs Hunger's goal is to use the draw of great music, with exciting up-and-coming bands, to make sure those who are hungry are not forgotten.
Music vs Hunger's first show was in late November. Featuring three great bands HolidayHoliday, the Senors of Marseille and (appropriately) Food Stamps, the show raised $70 and collected about 50 non-perishable food items. I think we can do much better, but just $1 donated to The Food Bank of NYC can provide 5 meals. So our first show helped feed more than 300 people.
Music vs Hunger's second show is on December 22 at the great Cake Shop on 152 Ludlow here in New York. More Info can be found on our Facebook event page.
December 8, 2009
World Hunger Requires Research, Not Rancor
While many Americans are worrying about not gaining weight during the holiday season, one-sixth of our planet's population is in danger of malnutrition, not obesity. As the U.N. World Food Program recently reported, more than a billion people do not get enough food to be healthy. Even more alarmingly, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has declared, some six million children die of hunger every year. Even here in the United States, in the midst of the recession, almost 50 million Americans are having a hard time feeding themselves and their children.
A half-century ago, when similar problems loomed, the Green Revolution -- and the worldwide network of research agencies that grew out of it -- created new higher-yielding, disease-resistant food crops for the areas of the world that most needed them.
But today, rather than uniting in a global effort to end hunger, we're settling into the same old "I'm right, you're wrong" camps. Environmentalists see only the negatives from the first Green Revolution: heavy use of environmentally unfriendly pesticides and fertilizers, and fewer options for small farmers in poor countries. Agriculture advocates point out that hunger and starvation would be even more widespread today without the advances from the 1960s and '70s and call for more of the same.
As with most other controversial issues, the debate is not so much about the final goal but about how to get there. Global food issues, however, are so urgent that we cannot afford the luxury of lengthy ideological arguments. With so much starvation and an ever increasing world population, we simply need more nutritious food, especially in developing countries, plus a viable distribution network. At the same time, the amount of land devoted to agriculture worldwide is decreasing for a variety of reasons, and climate changes could create droughts or floods in some now-arable land.
The answer, it seems obvious, is to produce more and better food from the available land, or in economic terminology, to increase agricultural productivity. One of the keys to solving the hunger problem over the last 40 years has been agricultural productivity growth, or the rate at which productivity increases each year. It has slowed dramatically from the glory days of the mid-20th century. Innovation and research back then enabled farmers around the world to grow enough food for an expanding population. Much of that research was funded by the U.S. government as well as other nations, NGOs and private foundations, and history shows that such investments do pay off in new crops and higher productivity.
Since then, in the U.S. and other developed-world countries, the burden for funding agricultural research has largely shifted to the private, for-profit sector. While such funded research can make important discoveries, those discoveries tend not to be shared with others, for competitive or profit-based reasons. That's understandable, but unfortunate for the parts of the world that have unique or persistent problems feeding their citizens and that can't afford to conduct their own research.
Economists who study food issues say the worldwide drop in productivity is a red flag: potential shortages of soybeans, rice, wheat and maize, the world's primary grains, are a real possibility. Add in ballooning populations in poor countries, and you have the potential for a global disaster.
Philanthropists are making positive change. At the recent World Food Prize symposium, for example, Microsoft founder Bill Gates spoke eloquently about making small-holder farming more productive and profitable, and about finding ways to make the next Green Revolution truly sustainable and environmentally sound. He and his wife, Melinda, have made agricultural development a key initiative in their Gates Foundation, which is funding hundreds of innovative new ideas. The work of the Gates Foundation and other philanthropists can help make progress, but as a nation, we also must contribute for this greater global good.
Federal investment in agricultural research for the 21st century is critical. Research funding must be targeted specifically for food productivity research, and it must also take into account environmental concerns about the use of pesticides and fertilizers as well as how water supplies can most wisely be used. And the investment must come soon; new agricultural innovations can take years, even decades, to be widely adopted.
If, for once, Americans can avoid the usual bickering and personal attacks, we won't be too late.
Allen S. Levine is dean of the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences and Director of the Minnesota Obesity Center at the University of Minnesota. J. Brian Atwood is dean of the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota and a former Administrator of USAID. The views the authors express are their own and do not reflect an official position of the University of Minnesota.
A half-century ago, when similar problems loomed, the Green Revolution -- and the worldwide network of research agencies that grew out of it -- created new higher-yielding, disease-resistant food crops for the areas of the world that most needed them.
But today, rather than uniting in a global effort to end hunger, we're settling into the same old "I'm right, you're wrong" camps. Environmentalists see only the negatives from the first Green Revolution: heavy use of environmentally unfriendly pesticides and fertilizers, and fewer options for small farmers in poor countries. Agriculture advocates point out that hunger and starvation would be even more widespread today without the advances from the 1960s and '70s and call for more of the same.
As with most other controversial issues, the debate is not so much about the final goal but about how to get there. Global food issues, however, are so urgent that we cannot afford the luxury of lengthy ideological arguments. With so much starvation and an ever increasing world population, we simply need more nutritious food, especially in developing countries, plus a viable distribution network. At the same time, the amount of land devoted to agriculture worldwide is decreasing for a variety of reasons, and climate changes could create droughts or floods in some now-arable land.
The answer, it seems obvious, is to produce more and better food from the available land, or in economic terminology, to increase agricultural productivity. One of the keys to solving the hunger problem over the last 40 years has been agricultural productivity growth, or the rate at which productivity increases each year. It has slowed dramatically from the glory days of the mid-20th century. Innovation and research back then enabled farmers around the world to grow enough food for an expanding population. Much of that research was funded by the U.S. government as well as other nations, NGOs and private foundations, and history shows that such investments do pay off in new crops and higher productivity.
Since then, in the U.S. and other developed-world countries, the burden for funding agricultural research has largely shifted to the private, for-profit sector. While such funded research can make important discoveries, those discoveries tend not to be shared with others, for competitive or profit-based reasons. That's understandable, but unfortunate for the parts of the world that have unique or persistent problems feeding their citizens and that can't afford to conduct their own research.
Economists who study food issues say the worldwide drop in productivity is a red flag: potential shortages of soybeans, rice, wheat and maize, the world's primary grains, are a real possibility. Add in ballooning populations in poor countries, and you have the potential for a global disaster.
Philanthropists are making positive change. At the recent World Food Prize symposium, for example, Microsoft founder Bill Gates spoke eloquently about making small-holder farming more productive and profitable, and about finding ways to make the next Green Revolution truly sustainable and environmentally sound. He and his wife, Melinda, have made agricultural development a key initiative in their Gates Foundation, which is funding hundreds of innovative new ideas. The work of the Gates Foundation and other philanthropists can help make progress, but as a nation, we also must contribute for this greater global good.
Federal investment in agricultural research for the 21st century is critical. Research funding must be targeted specifically for food productivity research, and it must also take into account environmental concerns about the use of pesticides and fertilizers as well as how water supplies can most wisely be used. And the investment must come soon; new agricultural innovations can take years, even decades, to be widely adopted.
If, for once, Americans can avoid the usual bickering and personal attacks, we won't be too late.
Allen S. Levine is dean of the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences and Director of the Minnesota Obesity Center at the University of Minnesota. J. Brian Atwood is dean of the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota and a former Administrator of USAID. The views the authors express are their own and do not reflect an official position of the University of Minnesota.
December 7, 2009
Obama and Governors Must Lead on Hunger Crisis
The holiday season is a time when Americans traditionally remember those who are hungry. But news reports of the last few weeks make the plight of many of our fellow citizens particularly unforgettable. With the participation in the food stamp program currently increasing by a shocking 20,000 people a day, the hunger crisis now warrants direct intervention by President Obama. Though formidable, the hunger problem is solvable, especially if the president provides stronger leadership and coordination with the nation's governors than we have yet seen.
Consider this troubling new data:
Last week the US Department of Agriculture documented record increases in the number of American families who experienced hunger between 2007 and 2008, finding that 49 million Americans were struggling to put food on the table. 17 million of those affected are children.Share Our Strength released a survey of 740 K-8 public school teachers conducted by Lake Research Partners finding that 62 percent of teachers see kids who are hungry because they do not get enough to eat at home, and an equal percentage of teachers use personal funds from their own teacher salaries to regularly buy food for the kids to eat in class or take home for weekends.The New York Times found that 1 in 4 American children are on food stamps and in St Louis, Memphis and New Orleans among other places half of the children or more receive food stamps. In many counties the number of people on the food stamp rolls has doubled in just two years.
The recession has brought the issue of hunger into sharp relief but is also producing some effective responses.
America, in its abundance, does not lack food. That is not why kids are hungry. Nor do we lack public food and nutrition programs. They have existed and expanded for decades with strong bipartisan support. Kids who are hungry in America are hungry because they lack access to such programs. That is a solvable problem.
Governors Martin O'Malley in Maryland and Bill Ritter in Colorado are solving it by directing state agencies to work with community organizations to identify and eliminate institutional barriers to accessing such programs. That might mean moving school breakfast, which has roughly half the participation of school lunch, from the cafeteria before school to first period when students don't face the same transportation challenges or stigma of arriving early. It often means organizing alternative summer feeding sites to provide meals when the schools are closed. The result can be tens of millions of already authorized and appropriated federal dollars flowing into states that have otherwise suffered massive budget and program cuts.
Just imagine if a defense contractor in a state knew that millions of dollars had been appropriated for a project in its state and could be accessed if the Governor made an effort to bring it in. Do you think a lobbyist might bring it to the Governor's attention? Hungry children in America have no such lobbyists.
To their credit, Governors like O'Malley and Ritter are acting aggressively even in the absence of such pressures. They are proving what a little ingenuity can achieve even during a recession, or perhaps especially during a recession. And they are finding ways to promote programs they care about even if they don't have dollars in their state budget to fund them.
But not all Governors have hunger on their radar screen. Others bristle at and resist any type of funding that comes with administrative strings attached, even though the Administration has been willing to waive burdensome regulations to increase participation during this time of hardship.
When the USDA report was issued President Obama repeated the pledge he made during the campaign to end childhood hunger by 2015. And he has staffed the Agriculture Department that oversees such programs with talented and committed people. But with hunger reaching the epidemic scale documented in recent reports, even more must be done. The president should urgently convene the nation's governors to personally educate, persuade, and if necessary shame them into action.
The president's ambitions for health care, education and a host of other issues are tied to the opportunities our children have to access the nutritious food they need to learn, grow, and compete. Food and nutrition programs are already in place to do that. But it will take leadership and coordination with the governors who have the responsibility to make those programs work. Failing banks and auto companies warranted the president's personal engagement. The growing epidemic of hungry children deserves no less.
Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength.
Consider this troubling new data:
Last week the US Department of Agriculture documented record increases in the number of American families who experienced hunger between 2007 and 2008, finding that 49 million Americans were struggling to put food on the table. 17 million of those affected are children.Share Our Strength released a survey of 740 K-8 public school teachers conducted by Lake Research Partners finding that 62 percent of teachers see kids who are hungry because they do not get enough to eat at home, and an equal percentage of teachers use personal funds from their own teacher salaries to regularly buy food for the kids to eat in class or take home for weekends.The New York Times found that 1 in 4 American children are on food stamps and in St Louis, Memphis and New Orleans among other places half of the children or more receive food stamps. In many counties the number of people on the food stamp rolls has doubled in just two years.
The recession has brought the issue of hunger into sharp relief but is also producing some effective responses.
America, in its abundance, does not lack food. That is not why kids are hungry. Nor do we lack public food and nutrition programs. They have existed and expanded for decades with strong bipartisan support. Kids who are hungry in America are hungry because they lack access to such programs. That is a solvable problem.
Governors Martin O'Malley in Maryland and Bill Ritter in Colorado are solving it by directing state agencies to work with community organizations to identify and eliminate institutional barriers to accessing such programs. That might mean moving school breakfast, which has roughly half the participation of school lunch, from the cafeteria before school to first period when students don't face the same transportation challenges or stigma of arriving early. It often means organizing alternative summer feeding sites to provide meals when the schools are closed. The result can be tens of millions of already authorized and appropriated federal dollars flowing into states that have otherwise suffered massive budget and program cuts.
Just imagine if a defense contractor in a state knew that millions of dollars had been appropriated for a project in its state and could be accessed if the Governor made an effort to bring it in. Do you think a lobbyist might bring it to the Governor's attention? Hungry children in America have no such lobbyists.
To their credit, Governors like O'Malley and Ritter are acting aggressively even in the absence of such pressures. They are proving what a little ingenuity can achieve even during a recession, or perhaps especially during a recession. And they are finding ways to promote programs they care about even if they don't have dollars in their state budget to fund them.
But not all Governors have hunger on their radar screen. Others bristle at and resist any type of funding that comes with administrative strings attached, even though the Administration has been willing to waive burdensome regulations to increase participation during this time of hardship.
When the USDA report was issued President Obama repeated the pledge he made during the campaign to end childhood hunger by 2015. And he has staffed the Agriculture Department that oversees such programs with talented and committed people. But with hunger reaching the epidemic scale documented in recent reports, even more must be done. The president should urgently convene the nation's governors to personally educate, persuade, and if necessary shame them into action.
The president's ambitions for health care, education and a host of other issues are tied to the opportunities our children have to access the nutritious food they need to learn, grow, and compete. Food and nutrition programs are already in place to do that. But it will take leadership and coordination with the governors who have the responsibility to make those programs work. Failing banks and auto companies warranted the president's personal engagement. The growing epidemic of hungry children deserves no less.
Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength.