What Food Insecurity Looks Like From the Inside

Around 2009 my career led me to be a fund-and-food-raising supporter of an organization named Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC (Second Harvest). Supporting thousands of local families through a myriad of programs, this organization touched my heart and their mission hit home with me. This year my company, Signature Property Group, is participating in fundraising efforts with other apartment communities, vendors, and management companies in the Triad. We are all in, trying to raise enough money and food for 500,000 meals. HALF. A. MILLION. MEALS. And we are well on our way!

I am writing this blog because one, I want to ask YOU to help us. Just $1 affords Second Harvest the opportunity to buy 7 – YES, SEVEN – nutritious meals. $13 will feed one person three nutritious meals for a month! It really is this easy to make an impact.

More importantly, I want you know why the mission of Second Harvest hit so close to home…

Before you continue reading, I want you to know I had a good childhood. It wasn’t perfect, but I had a mom and sister that I loved and friends who were so fun. I played a lot of games, dominated in mother-may-I, and read more books in 3^rd-6^th grade than anyone in North Carolina, I’m sure. I had clothes on my back and my aunts always made sure we had birthday and Christmas presents. I never realized the battles we faced were unique because my closest friends faced the same battles. I honestly didn’t know I was “missing out” on anything until I went to college and made some of the greatest friendships I have today. As I share my experience, I am asking that you know the struggles I am going to share, and others I might share in the future, have molded who I am, and in a way, define who I am, but have not made me jaded to my past life. I still look upon my childhood with love in a lot of ways and I know there are many out there (some may be reading this now) who have had a much harder life than we did.

That being said…

As a child, there were a few days each month that I remember making me excitedly happy – 1) sleepover days, when friends would ride the bus home with me, 2) Monopoly game days with my best friend John, and 3) the 5^th of every month – when momma went to Jacksonville and picked up our food stamps!

Until I started supporting Second Harvest I didn’t know what it meant to be “food insecure”. I knew there were a lot of days I was hungry, but I didn’t know there was a possible solution – again, I grew up with friends in very similar situations.

On food stamp day my sister and I would come home after school and mom would be waiting to leave, anxious like we were, to go to the grocery store. Armed with a piece of paper, pencil and calculator, we would head to Food Lion, excited to have food again. 

Again. 

An adverb meaning once more, or returning to a previous condition.

The food we would buy this day would last us the next 3 weeks. Max. We wouldn’t get treats, we wouldn’t get bagel bites or French toast sticks (or other fun snacky food I grew to like at my friends’ homes), we wouldn’t get fresh fruits or vegetables (except maybe a bag of oranges and a bag of apples – for the month), and we wouldn’t get enough food to last the next 30 days. Of course, we would hope that the spaghetti, chili, porkchops, chicken, bologna, bread, potatoes, ramen noodles, etc. that we did buy, would make it the full month, but it never did. 

It would last close to 3 weeks and then we’d scrimp by, my sister and I eating our only real meals at lunch at school, having ramen noodles or mayonnaise sandwiches for dinner, sometimes going to bed hungry. Until we good food stamps… and had food… again.

And until right now, as I am writing this, I never thought about my mom, and how she must’ve felt throughout the day, knowing she couldn’t put a meal on the table for us at dinner. Maybe she didn’t stress about it as much as I imagine her stressing, but it couldn’t be easy knowing she couldn’t change our circumstances.

(For more insight on our momma and the unique struggles she has, you can read a blog I posted a few years ago titled “i love you, momma”.)

So this is what “food insecurity” is. It is not famine, it is not starvation, it is extreme bouts of hunger. It is going periods of time not knowing where your next meal is coming from. It is summer months of not having school lunch and hoping the community lunch truck is going to show up because you haven’t eaten a meal in three days. It’s eating carbs on carbs on carbs because they’re cheap and filling and not knowing until you’re 20 that you like steamed broccoli and you love fresh pineapple. It’s going to a friends’ house and sneaking packs of fruit gushers in your backpack while everyone is asleep so you can have a treat over the next couple of days. Food insecurity is going to school hungry and lying when the teacher asks why you’re so lethargic or grumpy and off from your normal mood because you haven’t eaten since lunch the day before. 

And then the 5^th of the next month comes. And for the next three weeks you’re happy. Tensions at home are subsided because everyone is fed. You think more clearly at school, you don’t sneak snacks at friends’ houses, you don’t have a reason to lie to your teacher and you get a good nights’ rest on a full belly.

Until the food runs out and you’re hoping and praying someone asks you to join them for a sleepover.

Last year I started seeing a therapist. Molly. One of the greatest gifts ever given to me is her referral (thanks Heather!). For the past year Molly and I have worked through so much. I jokingly tell her by the time she solves my problems (which she always reminds me she can’t do) I’m going to put her kids through college! This year we’ve talked extensively through my weight loss challenges. And while on maternity leave for the summer she referred me to a Nutritional/Dietician Counselor so I can specifically work on the underlying issues with my obesity.

Insert Laura. She’s a gem. In the short time I’ve been seeing her I can tell I’m already giving her a run for her money… I’ll let her know she can expect me to put her kids through college too!

A couple of months ago I told Molly I’ve had this nagging feeling that my childhood somehow has led to my obesity and I can’t figure it out because WE DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH FOOD so reason would state I’d be thin. Maybe it was food choices? Because we ate lots of bread and pasta. But again, only 3-ish weeks every month. Sometimes less. My sister and I were talking about the propensity I have to over-eat. We tied that back to the times we did have food and we would get our bellies FULL. And now I am in constant search of that fullness, and constantly over-eating.

Then I brought this up to Laura. And know I know – food insecurity leads to obesity for these reasons and more!

• Food insecurity leads to obesity because it slows down the body’s metabolism to protect from starvation when that week-or-two of food insecurity begins. It stores fat to use it later when the periods of hunger strike.

• Food insecurity leads to obesity because of poor food choice. The cheapest foods are the highest in carbs and sugar. And while the body absolutely needs them to survive, with a slower metabolism the sugar is stored for later and not promptly used.

• Food insecurity leads to obesity because when you have food you will always overeat to overcompensate the fear that you do not know when your next meal will be there or be missing.

• Food insecurity leads to obesity because when you don’t have enough food, you’re not happy. And when you do have food it releases endorphins that make you feel happy. So, in periods of food security you may overeat for that feeling of happiness.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. YES! To all of the above.

When I came to college it was the first time, I had regular access to food. So, I ask Laura, who has to be the most excited dietician I’ve ever known because she gets thrilled when my brain works through problems and I ask her questions, “If my childhood was a cycle of nourishment and starvation why didn’t I lose weight when I had constant food?” GOOD QUESTION! (That’s how I know I’m on to something). She said if you weren’t giving your body constant nourishment it did not learn that it doesn’t need to hold on to the storage for a future period of hunger. And she’s right, I didn’t. I would skip meals (still do), I would prolong eating until way past the point of hunger to finish work in the library (or now at my desk). I found comfort in feeling H U N G R Y and then solving it with a big ole meal. Because that’s how I felt happiness as a child.

Yes, now I’m working through habits and thought processes to help me. I am trying to figure out how to change the fate of my food insecure past that has led me to be the 400+ pound person I am today. And yes, it feels great to know there’s light at the end of the tunnel – but that’s not why we’re here…

We’re here because I want you to see what food insecurity causes. Many of you who read this will be people who know me well, love me deeply, and will probably message me with “I am sorry you went through that”. I am asking you not to be sorry for me, or sorry for my sister, or sorry for my mother. I am asking you to recognize the impact you can have. Not just now, but forever.

I frequently think about the kids whose parents go to food banks, churches, schools, etc. and have to ask for help. I think about the children sitting in school Friday dreading the weekend because there isn’t food at home. I think about the children who are lethargic today because there was no breakfast or who lie to the teacher about why they’re in a bad mood. I think about how their food insecure lives could be leading to health problems in the future. I think about them often because they are me. They are my sister. They are my childhood friends. And there are thousands. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS who need our help and support, if we can give it. 

We’re here because we can do our part to help absolve food insecurity and help prevent childhood obesity. We can do our part to also help adults and senior citizens who need food security as well.

My family and I are living witness that one can survive food insecurity, but should we have had to endure it? Should our neighbors have to endure it? If we can each help a little, they will not have to endure it any longer.

We are here because I want you to donate to Second Harvest. Whether directly to them or through our fundraising efforts, I want you to know you can make a difference. Just $1 buys 7 nutritious meals. Imagine giving $13 and providing 3 nutritious meals every day for a whole month for that sweet child, trying to focus in school. Or for that elderly neighbor choosing medicine over food.

Thank you for your love and prayers and support. If you can, thank you for helping us raise 500,000 meals! And, thank you for just reading to the end, I am proud to call all of you my friends.

To learn more about Second Harvest Food Bank of NW NC: https://www.hungernwnc.org/

To donate to our fundraiser, raising 500,000 meals: https://secure.qgiv.com/event/account/792917?fbclid=IwAR0vUoqo1XcdBT7GuBnCBff3mlgcZEWKAqQZOCFPv_saU825Dn2i3aeCPt8

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