2 Million Children Go Hungry in State, Study Says : Poverty: Number is rising, UC Berkeley study finds. Legislature sends school breakfast bill to governor.

The effects of children going hungry are well documented: stomachaches, headaches, dizziness, nausea, lethargy, possibly pointing to irreversible illnesses; the little ones constantly crying, the bigger ones stealing a cupcake from the 7-Eleven.

Now comes a documented, disturbing account of how many hungry children there are: In California alone, 2 million and rising, a consequence of the state’s prolonged recession, declining public assistance grants and giveaway food stocks running low.

Public health experts at UC Berkeley released figures Thursday showing that, as a conservative estimate, 8.4 million Californians are at risk of some degree of hunger and that 5 million periodically suffer hunger, including the 2 million children and 250,000 seniors.

Between 1987 and 1993, with those in poverty reeling more than ever from the economic downturn, the number of those who go hungry jumped by half, the researchers said. If present trends continue, they added, the effects will spread to one in three California children by 2000.

“Policy-makers face the choice of preventing or alleviating hunger now, or paying a much higher price in the future,” the study said. “Ensuring food security is the first step toward fighting poverty” because nothing is more basic than the need of “people who start and end their days on an empty stomach.”

To address part of that need, the Legislature on Thursday delivered to Gov. Pete Wilson for his signature a bill providing an incentive to increase food delivery to hungry children at their schools. The legislation would expand by about 300 the number of schools that could qualify for a $10,000 state grant to add equipment to their cafeterias to begin serving federally financed breakfasts as well as lunches.

The measure squeaked through the two houses in the face of philosophical objections, mostly from Republicans, but Wilson in the past has supported similar measures, and has budgeted enough funds for the program.

A spokeswoman for the governor, Kristine Berman, said Wilson has yet to decide whether to sign the bill but he “has been very supportive of nutrition programs like breakfast bills in the past.”

Berman said the governor’s staff has not examined the hunger report by the UC Berkeley public health researchers, but “we’ll take a look and see what they have to say.”

The study, the first commissioned by the state since 1987 to attempt an overview assessment of hunger, is critical of Wilson’s record of reducing welfare benefits, saying aid to mothers and children has continued to decline and that by 1996, the welfare grant threatens to become only two-thirds of the minimum required to stay out of poverty.

The UC study based its findings primarily on the number of Californians at or near the federal poverty line. That standard shifts with the cost of living index. Now, a family of three is at the line if its income is $12,324 a year.

Linda Neuhauser, a research faculty member at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and one of the study’s authors, said the data, based on collected research of others rather than field observations, shows “that the vast majority of people living at or below the poverty line were experiencing chronic hunger.”

It is that group that researchers said numbered 5 million, including 2 million children, “as a conservative estimate . . . who periodically go hungry,” Neuhauser said. “For some it might be every day, for others every month or a few times a year.”

The 3.4 million poor who were identified as “at risk of hunger” live slightly above the poverty line but are still unable to pay all their bills, particularly for shelter in California where housing costs are second-highest in the nation.

“These are people who are living on the edge of becoming hungry,” Neuhauser said. “They may be a paycheck away from being able to provide for their family. If the food pantry they depend on runs out of groceries that month, they could easily join the ranks of those who go hungry.”

Neuhauser said the 2 million children who do go hungry in California represent 24.4% of all children in the state up to age 18, a proportion higher than the 18% reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture this year.

LeRoy Chatfield, executive director of the Loaves & Fishes private charity in Sacramento that feeds upward of 1,000 people a day, said his pantry could run out at any time.

“For the first quarter, our numbers (of people seeking assistance) are up 14% over the same quarter a year ago,” he said, “and that is truly a staggering increase . . . that bodes poorly for our ability to respond.”

The legislation that won final passage Thursday would expand the pool of schools serving breakfasts by relaxing the requirements for a school to become eligible for a $10,000 state start-up grant.

Now, at least 40% of a school’s children must be low-income to qualify for the grants. The bill by Sen. Lucy Killea (I-San Diego) would allow schools with 30% low-income children to qualify.

Many schools consider the state grants critical to beginning a breakfast program. Killea said there are schools with 37% and 38% of their students in need that “really want to apply for (the state grant) and couldn’t because they didn’t qualify.”

According to nutritionists and public health officials, beginning the day on an empty stomach is a major reason why poor children often lack concentration to perform well in class, and why they develop a host of symptoms often associated with lasting medical complications. A report by the nonprofit California Food Policy Advocates organization cited evidence suggesting that childhood anemia, often the result of a deprived diet, can permanently damage mental faculties.

The state grants could be used to purchase refrigerators and equipment to store breakfast foods, or for staff training and communicating with parents, but cannot be used for food. Schools are reimbursed for the breakfast food itself, as they are for lunch supplies, by the federal government.

Of California’s 7,731 K-12 public schools, virtually all offer lunches, free or discounted to poor children, but only 4,925 also serve breakfasts, according to the state Department of Education. According to the food policy advocacy group, there are about 400 schools that could qualify to start serving breakfasts but choose not to.

“Some schools don’t want (the grants) and that’s why it’s voluntary,” Killea said.

State Sen. Richard Mountjoy (R-Arcadia) told a reporter the bill is not designed to feed children but to “get into more government funds,” both from the state for the start-up money and the federal government for the purchase of cafeteria foods.

Assemblyman Steve Baldwin (R-El Cajon), who voted against the bill in the lower house, said he saw no reason to “train people to make peanut butter sandwiches” and he “does not like to see government creep into areas of family responsibility.”