THE NOURISHING EFFECT

CHAPTER 1
is debating domestic anti-hunger legislation. In a 2012 interview with Greg Kaufmann of
The Nation, Chilton recalled the time in 2007 that she was testifying before Congress on the
importance of the Food Stamp Program for the health and well-being of young children. She
was there to talk about the research she and her colleagues at other Children’s HealthWatch
sites had been doing. “I literally watched the Congress people’s eyes glaze over, and I thought,
“Well, this isn’t doing it.” 33
As her clinical colleagues had
found, Chilton realized that policy
makers demand numbers, but will
not act unless constantly reminded
that numbers all have names and
faces. When Chilton got back to
Philadelphia, she developed a
project called Witnesses to Hunger,
where she provided cameras to
mothers living in poverty and
asked them to create a visual diary
of what hunger looks like in their
communities. The images were
published on the Internet, where
they went viral, and eventually
the mothers were invited to display
their photographs and discuss
them at an exhibition in the
halls of Congress. The Witnesses to
Hunger project is designed to keep
eyes from glazing over, and it’s
been quite successful in doing so.
In the mid-2000s, Children’s
HealthWatch sites began piloting
the use of a 2-item food security
screening tool. The tool is based on
a longer food security survey the
U.S. Census Bureau administers
annually to the population at large
Figure 1.5
Hospitalized
Since Birth
Fair/Poor
Child Health
Child at Risk of
Developmental
Delays
Fair/Poor
Maternal Health
Maternal
Depressive
Symptoms
Families at Risk of Food Insecurity Had Worse Child
Health Outcomes and Worse Maternal Mental and
Physical Health.
Food-Secure Families
Food-Insecure Families
0 1x 2x 3x
Increased Odds of Poor Child Health Outcomes
Source: Children’s HealthWatch Data, 1998-2005. All increases statistically significant at p