Jm. Murphy et al., RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUNGER AND PSYCHOSOCIAL FUNCTIONING IN LOW-INCOME AMERICAN CHILDREN, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 37(2), 1998, pp. 163-170
Objective: Using large-scale surveys from nine states, the Community C
hildhood Hunger Identification Project (CCHIP) estimates that 8% of Am
erican children under the age of 12 years experience hunger each year.
CCHIP operationalizes child hunger as multiple experiences of parent-
reported food insufficiency due to constrained resources. The current
study examined the relationship between food insufficiency and school-
age, low-income children's psychosocial functioning. The study also as
sessed the interinformant (parent versus child) reliability and time-t
o-time reliability of the CCHIP measure. Method: Two hundred four scho
ol-age children and their parents from four inner-city public schools
were interviewed using parent, teacher, and clinician report measures
of psychosocial functioning. Ninety-six children and their parents wer
e reinterviewed 4 months later. Results: Hungry and at-risk for hunger
children were twice as likely as not-hungry children to be classified
as having impaired functioning by parent and child report. Teachers r
eported higher levels of hyperactivity, absenteeism, and tardiness amo
ng hungry/at-risk children than not-hungry children. Parent and child
reports of hunger were significantly related to each other, and time-t
o-time reliability of the CCHIP measure was acceptable. Conclusions: R
esults of this study suggest that intermittent experiences of food ins
ufficiency and hunger as measured by CCHIP are associated with poor be
havioral and academic functioning in low-income children. The current
study also supports the validity and reliability of the CCHIP measure
for assessing hunger in children.