Super-sized or super hungry?

Super-sized or super hungry?

You could have a giant burger with French fries at a restaurant, or some popcorn and soda when you’re at the movies. There’s food available around the clock, so you’ll never go hungry in the USA, right? Wrong. About one in seven American families do not always get enough food. This is why there is a National School Lunch Program, where children of poor families get free or cut-price lunches.

All over the world, including the USA, homeless and poor people go hungry while the rest of society throws away huge amounts of food. This gave Komal Ahmad, a student from Las Vegas, a clever idea. She set up a company called Feeding Forward, which developed an app that connects people who have food to spare with those who are hungry. For example, large companies often have a canteen for their workers. Sometimes there’s food left over. Now they can use the app to contact organisations that help the homeless and hungry.

However, many people in the USA have the opposite problem. There are more overweight people here than in any other developed country in the world. Almost 80 million adults (about 35%) are obese. About 12.7 million children and teenagers (17%) are also obese. Why is this? People in developed countries overeat for many reasons. But here in the USA there is so much food and drink available. There are many fast food restaurants selling inexpensive food day and night. Another factor is portion sizes. What we consider a normal portion is now much larger than it used to be. However, people don’t just eat larger portions at restaurants. They eat larger portions at home and they also eat snacks between meals. A lot of snacks.

Why can’t people just say no? Imagine that you are surrounded by advertisements for food and drink. Would you say no if your favourite snacks or soda were half-price and you could buy them any time you wanted?