[00:16.01]Now a pair of stories tied to concerns over economic inequality and mobility in the U.S.
[00:22.43]The president is expected to speak at length about these topics in his State of the Union address next week.
[00:28.45]First, a health story.? There are about 50 million people in the United States who don't have access to the food they need to lead healthy and productive lives; 
[00:37.96]17 million of them are children.? Many live in big cities like Los Angeles, New York, Houston, and Chicago.
[00:45.49]That's according to the latest report from the hunger relief group Feeding America.
[00:50.79]But there are areas where the problem is much more pronounced than you might expect.
[00:55.57]And one of them is in Southern California.
[00:58.22]Hari is back with our report.
[01:01.63]It's known as one of the most exclusive places on earth, the home of the rich and spectacularly rich.
[01:13.91]Orange County, Calif.'s, reputation only grew when the TV crews started rolling in several years ago.
[01:21.54]But "The Real Housewives of Orange County" and the teens of "Laguna Beach" failed to mention a major piece of the O.C. drama.
[01:29.17]The county is also among the top 10 in the U.S. for childhood food insecurity.?
[01:34.34]The term means that, along with the yacht clubs and average home prices of nearly $2 million in some spots, 
[01:40.82]Orange County also has more than 150,000 children who don't know where their next meal is coming from.
[01:47.79]Paul Leon is the president of the Illumination Foundation, a group that helps struggling families find housing and stability.
[01:55.76]Orange County is basically the tale of two cities.? We have the area that we're standing in right now, which is Newport Beach, is the richest think in the nation.
[02:06.26]And then 17 miles away, we have one of the most densely populated and poorest cities in the nation.?
[02:16.82]Among the poor are thousands of low-income workers who support the county's luxury economy.
[02:20.01]Before Leon's foundation intervened, kids in the Tina Pacific neighborhood of Anaheim often skipped meals.?
[02:27.18]Michele Cummings, who volunteers for the foundation and lives in Tina Pacific, was one of the first to recognize how hungry her neighbors were.?
[02:34.57]One night, we had pizza delivered, and a kid came over like a half-an-hour later, and he was like, do you have any leftovers?? I'm really hungry.
[02:41.91]And I was like, are you serious?? And he was like, yes, I'm like -- I'm hungry.? And I went, well, come on.? Here.
[02:50.99]Take it, the rest of it.?
[02:53.44]Cummings made some calls an helped organize a program called Kids Cafe.
[02:58.18]Now each day after school, she passes out fresh food dropped off by a local food bank.?
[03:03.52]OK, go sit at your tables.?
[03:05.13]The kids call Cummings the lunch lady, a point of great pride for her, because not long ago, she and her 9-year-old daughter, Sofia, didn't always have enough nutritious food either.?
[03:14.98]No problem.?
[03:15.73]When Cummings lost her job, her life spiraled out of control.
[03:20.49]Stable housing can be hard to come by in a place where average rents top $1,200 for a one-bedroom.?
[03:27.62]They found themselves in line at the armory's homeless shelter, then living in a low-rent motel where it was difficult to prepare little more than cheap processed food.?
[03:36.53]Like, at first, we were just doing microwave meals every -- every night.
[03:41.46]And it was -- just, like, it was horrible.? The salt in them was horrible.
[03:46.55]So before I got, like, cooking stuff, you know, we were living off microwave meals, definitely.?
[03:52.74]For Cummings' health, it was a recipe for disaster.? Within months, she gained close to 40 pounds.
[03:58.77]That worried her.? But even more so, she worried about Sofia, and for good reason.?
[04:03.81]Recent studies by the National Institutes of Health suggest that a lack of nutritious food, 
[04:08.30]especially during childhood, can have long-lasting physical consequences that linger for years, if not decades, 
[04:15.62]among them, anemia, early onset diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, depression, stunted intellectual growth, and obesity.?
[04:26.02]It's that last point that many find hard to reconcile, the presence of malnutrition and obesity at the same time.
[04:32.88]But most processed foods, while high in calories, simply don't contain the nutrients that are so crucial for good health and productivity.?
[04:40.96]There's also evidence that the body stores fat differently in times of stress, and that alternating between eating more 
[04:48.88]when cash and food are plentiful and less when they're not triggers the body's feast-or-famine reflexes.? The result? Weight gain.?
[04:58.23]Barbara Laraia of the University of California at Berkeley has been studying the long-term impacts of hunger for two decades 
[05:04.88]and says it all means the nutritional odds are stacked against low-income families.?
[05:10.36]So we have the stressful situations where, you know, the body is saying I need some energy, reach for the cookie, 
[05:19.15]and at this point in time in the United States, cookies and snack foods are everywhere.
[05:24.98]So not only is the income restriction leading to purchasing energy-dense foods, 
[05:31.90]but it's the stress as well that absolutely leads to the perfect storm of gaining weight, possibly developing chronic disease.
[05:40.36]And it might be associated with later chronic disease for children.?
[05:46.83]That's why, with one in five children sometimes going without meals in the community surrounding Disneyland, Orange County has begun approaching the issue like a public health crisis.?
[05:56.99]It started when O.C. public health officer Dr. Eric Handler ran into the director of the Orange County Food Bank recently and had two basic questions.?
[06:06.19]One, is there enough food in your food bank?? And he said no.
[06:09.45]And I said it, if we were able to capture food that is wasted and direct it to people in need, could we end hunger in Orange County?
[06:16.64]And he said yes.? And that was the start of this campaign.?
[06:19.93]About 40 percent of food in the U.S. is wasted, too often ending up in local landfills and buried.
[06:26.40]With that in mind, Handler started pushing the idea that businesses can easily change their habits and have an impact.?
[06:33.64]So for the past few months, Handler and his team have been hitting the road in Anaheim.?
[06:38.71]We are very hopeful that there will be significant increases in number of establishments donating food.?
[06:44.98]Hoping to target first the largest food producers, places like Disneyland, Angel Stadium, the Anaheim Convention Center, and the Honda Center.?
[06:52.99]Our goal is to find out which establishments are currently donating food and which are not, 
[06:59.96]and those who are not donating food, to educate them to the fact that they are not held liable if food is not correctly prepared.?
[07:07.44]One of the companies working with the Waste Not O.C. Coalition has already shown the concept can work.
[07:13.51]The Cheesecake Factory near Disneyland donates 200 to 300 pounds of food each week that has been fully prepared, but left unserved.?
[07:22.56]In the last five-and-a-half years, the chain has stored, packaged and handed off more than two-and-a-half million pounds nationwide.
[07:30.78]Members of the local food banks pick up the food, which is often healthier than the packaged variety donated in food drives.?
[07:37.54]Hi.? How are you today?
[07:40.60]On the consumer end, the Waste Not Coalition is also working to convince Orange County health care providers to ask questions about hunger during routine primary care visits.?
[07:50.46]Is there any time in the last couple of months that you have had difficulty financially purchasing adequate food, fresh fruits and vegetables for him or your family?
[08:01.84]The idea is that people like Dr. Phyllis Agran stand the best shot at breaking through the stigma and getting people the help they need.
[08:07.88]Agran agrees and has been willing to give it a try.? But she also says local projects of this kind are just a piece of the solution.?
[08:16.24]More importantly, I think, as pediatricians, we have a responsibility to children to advocate at the local, 
[08:22.61]the state and the federal level for policies that will eliminate food insecurity in this country.?
[08:29.57]Back in the neighborhood of Tina Pacific, things are looking up for Michele Cummings.? She recently landed a job as a caretaker for the elderly, 
[08:37.24]which means that she and her daughter have enough food and a better mix of it.
[08:42.07]Now that she has a kitchen, Cummings can buy in bulk, cook from scratch, and make her food stamp dollars last.?
[08:48.52]Like, I wouldn't say I can buy whatever I want, you know?? I don't barbecue steak every night, that's for sure.
[08:53.90]But I make it stretch.?
[08:56.59]On the menu this night, reheated soup laced with fresh vegetables, not the most elaborate meal in Orange County, but at least it's healthy, she says, and enough.
[09:07.29]Online, we have more about the ties between hunger, stress and weight gain, and a slide show of the other top counties in the U.S. for childhood hunger.
[09:16.91]That's on our Health page.