Too many children are hungry in a state that helps feed the world.

If you think childhood hunger is something seen only in places like Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region or drought-stricken Kenya, think again. At Hennepin County Medical Center, as the Minnesota lead investigator for the Children’s Sentinel Assessment Nutrition Program (C-SNAP), I and a national network of pediatricians, child development experts, and public health professionals have evaluated the health of more than 26,000 low-income babies and toddlers in six states, including Minnesota.

What have we learned? That hunger – or food insecurity, the term used by current government agencies and researchers to mean lack of access to enough food for an active and healthy life- is surprisingly common. Household food insecurity in Minnesota has ranged from 21% to 56% over the last eight years in the Hennepin county pediatrics clinics. But it’s not obvious. Hungry children are no more likely to be underweight, normal weight, or overweight than food secure children. In this country, childhood hunger isn’t an eyeball diagnosis.

How, then, is hunger seen? Our published research reports on the associations between hunger and outcomes like early childhood anemia, more frequent hospitalizations, maternal depression, and increased risk of child developmental delays. Even subtle deficiencies in the amount and quality of food in children’s diets affect their health, cognitive development, behavior, and ability to learn. Children of food insecure households will be left behind years before they enter school. For the individual child, the interactions between these factors create a perfect storm that can be devastating and life-long. Of course, individual young children remain relatively unseen. If you want to see what hunger looks like, I would suggest you look at the disparities between income levels in our state, including health care and educational costs and achievement.

As a pediatrician, I can treat a certain number of children each day. But doctors can’t begin to fill the real need. For that, we need public programs that work on behalf of all of us. Food Stamps are the nation’s most important weapon in the fight against hunger and C-SNAP finds that food stamps buffer young children from the negative health effects of food insecurity. For more than 26 million low-income Americans, including over 263,000 Minnesotans, food stamps help put food on the table. Nearly half, or 128,000, of Minnesota’s Food Stamp recipients are children.

Congress is now considering changes to the Food Stamp program, as part of the Farm Bill Reauthorization. There is room for improvement. Congress, working with the states, should remove obstacles to enrollment and invest in outreach efforts to increase participation. The Agriculture Department estimates that only about 57 percent of Minnesotans eligible to receive Food Stamps are currently enrolled. Congress should also stop the erosion in the value of Food Stamp benefits. In 2008, 214,000 Minnesotans will lose $28 million in Food Stamps, or the equivalent of $24 a month in groceries due to the lack of an annual inflation adjustment in the standard deduction used to calculate Food Stamp benefits. Losing $24 a month for groceries matters to families living on the financial edge.

Food Stamps are good medicine. They are a sound investment in the future success of our state’s children. It’s time for Congress to recognize this by strengthening food stamps and other nutrition initiatives in the Farm Bill.

Diana Becker Cutts, M.D., is a staff pediatrician at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota.