Feeding Alabama provides free nutrition kits for pediatricians, encourages doctors to screen for food insecurity

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) – According to Feeding Alabama, about one in five children in the state experiences hunger. In honor of September being Hunger Action Month, Feeding Alabama is on a mission to give out 500 Pediatric Nutrition Education Kits to doctors across the state. So far, about half of them are distributed.

“We hope to secure additional funding because as we stated, right now, the Daniel Foundation and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama have graciously provided grant funding to support the program and so as we kind of navigate next steps, we hope to receive additional grant funds and hope to be able to continue on with the existing partners but then add new partners to the program,” said Jessica Callahan with Feeding Alabama.

The nutrition kits come with a screening guide for pediatricians and resources for the families. Feeding Alabama says the screening guide is two ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions.

“They are up against a ton when a patient comes in for a visit, so we didn’t want to provide them a tool that was cumbersome or would weigh things down,” Callahan said. “We wanted it to be succinct and easy.”

The first question the organization encourages doctors to ask patients’ families is whether they’ve worried food will run out before they get money to buy more. The second question asks if the food they bought didn’t last and there wasn’t money to buy more. While the questions are simple, Feeding Alabama says it gives the doctor an idea of whether the family is food insecure.

“Typically, kids as they enter school have numerous opportunities to be screened for food insecurity and provided resources, but leading up to, in those years leading up to school age and that timeframe, there just aren’t as many ways for children to be screened,” said Callahan. “That’s why we started the initiative was to hopefully catch children at a younger age.”

Inside the kit are resources for families for nearby food banks, WIC and EBT information, some easy, healthy recipes as well as a few tangible items like a coloring book for the child and measuring spoons for the family.

Callahan says at a very basic level, when you don’t fuel your body with nutritious foods, more health issues can come up. Dr Keith Stansell at Alabama Pediatrics says nutrition will be a major player going forward in the healthcare world.

“Almost 20% of the kids in this country are overweight, and then you’re telling me that 1 in 5 children is food insecure. How can we have the richest country in the world with the most access to food but at least 20% of our children are food insecure? There’s a mismatch there. And I think that’s where the metabolic and the nutritional part comes in,” Stansell said. “I think if we start off with good nutrition, then we can further build and improve. If we start off behind the 8 ball, we’ll risk trying to play catch up the entire time.”

Stansell says addressing nutrition at a young age can help with chronic illnesses and help to bring down the number of prescriptions being written to little kids.

“For years, the playbook has been diagnose someone with a chronic illness, write them a prescription, then move on. And then they have another illness and you write them another prescription and then you move on. So, there has been very little focus on the common core of what is driving that force,” he said.

For any pediatric offices interested in the nutrition kits from Feeding Alabama, you can find more information here.