Access to adequate food is critical for health and well-being, and lack of food may have lasting consequences for health and development, especially for children. Since 2000, rates of poverty and food insecurity in the U.S. have been rising, and both spiked dramatically in 2008 with the onset of the Great Recession. In 2009, 23.2 percent of children lived in food insecure households, up from 16.9 percent in 1999, while the fraction of children living in households with very low food security has almost doubled, reaching 1.3 percent.