During the hustle and bustle of campaign season, it's easy to lose sight of the policy landscape as it exists outside of the candidates' proposals. So I'm introducing a new "Under the Radar" feature to call attention to issues that haven't broken onto the front pages, but deserve to be there. First up: Food stamps. When the House passed the 2007 Farm Bill in July, it approved a $4 billion increase in funding for the food stamp program. This week, the Senate is set to debate the legislation, which would increase food assistance to families with heavy childcare costs and to low-income senior citizens. How many Americans are affected by hunger? According to the Department of Agriculture, 35.5 million people are "food insecure" -- but that number doesn't include the homeless. Many of the hungry are children. In Appalachia, a study found that kids returned to class in September 10 percent lighter than they had been in June, in part because they didn't have access to school nutrition programs over the summer. The Christian Science Monitor has a good rundown of the debate over what hunger means in contemporary America. Because of the obesity epidemic, which disproportionately affects the poor, some observers believe Americans simply don't go hungry. But global trends have long showed a relationship between poverty, hunger, and obesity. You can't always tell if a person goes hungry by looking at them. --Dana Goldstein
