Don’t worry, Junior. Even though the cupboard is bare and your belly is grumbling, you’re not experiencing hunger. It’s just “very low food security.� How bad can that be?

How bad, indeed? This is from today’s Washington Post:

Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won’t Call Them Hungry

The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience “very low food security.”

Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans’ access to food, and it has consistently used the word “hunger” to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year.

Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said “hungry” is “not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey.” Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, “We don’t have a measure of that condition.”

The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans — 35 million people — could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined “very low food security” to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group….

Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. “The proposal to remove the word ‘hunger’ from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families,” said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group. “We . . . cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens.” [full text]

But some are doing just that, intentionally or not. While one can appreciate the need to replace subjective terminology with more objective (and measurable) language, the social and political ramifications of any such changes need to be given consideration. However imprecise, hunger is a term that people can relate to and public officials cannot easily ignore. The same cannot be said of “very low food security.” Such impersonal and obfuscatory language does not do justice to the experiences of those who are wanting. It’s a punch in an already empty belly.