She Doesn't Look Hungry. That's Exactly the Problem.
Food insecurity in children often goes undetected because parents absorb the deficit first. The child who eats slowly and leaves nothing. The one who never asks for the expensive snack. This is what hunger actually looks like.
She doesn't look hungry. That's the problem. The child who comes to school clean and dressed. Who eats the school lunch carefully and slowly. Who takes the extra snack offered without asking why. Who brings a too-small lunch and doesn't complain.
The parents of that child are not always visible. But they are usually hungry.
The Invisible Layer
One of the most consistent findings in food insecurity research is what researchers call 'parental buffering' — the tendency of parents to reduce their own food intake before children experience hunger. When the fridge is low on Tuesday and payday is Friday, it's the mother who skips breakfast. Not the child.
31.2% of Canadians in families with children are food insecure
But child hunger statistics undercount the problem, because parents absorb food shortfalls. In the U.S., approximately half of children under 3 in food-insecure households don't experience hunger — because their parents do. (Statistics Canada / USDA ERS, 2024)
What It Looks Like Up Close
It looks like a child who eats slower than the other kids. Who doesn't leave food on the plate. Who asks if they can take the leftover sandwich home. It looks like a mother who said she'd eaten already when the community dinner was served, and sat and watched everyone else eat.
It looks like a child who knows, without being told, that asking for the expensive snack isn't an option. Who has never once asked to stop at McDonald's because they can read the quiet in the car.
“We count child hunger. We barely count mother hunger. But you can't separate them.”
In Canada, Indigenous families and Black families face the highest rates of food insecurity — 39.9% and 46.7% respectively. These are not numbers in the abstract. They are grandmothers and aunts and mothers in communities where structural deprivation runs generations deep.
Ending hidden hunger means making it visible first. It means counting what we don't count — the meals mothers skip, the food insecurity that doesn't show up as a hungry child at school. It means building a food system and a social safety net that catches the whole family. Because you cannot protect children from hunger by allowing their mothers to go without.
Becky Tsadilas
Founder, Momera — Movement of Mothers Ending Poverty. Based in Cochrane, Alberta. hello@momera.ca