It’s well known that America’s obesity epidemic disproportionately affects poor and minority children because of the country’s glut of cheap, unhealthy foods. Soft drinks are such a major culprit in the childhood obesity epidemic that some local governments have tried to levy taxes on them to reduce consumption. The Obama administration announced a plan to ban candy and sweetened beverages from schools.

Now, a new study reveals that soda companies have been targeting black and Latino children in high numbers, diminishing parents’ attempts to encourage their kids to eat right:

A new report from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has found that beverage companies are aggressively targeting black and Latino kids with ads to promote sports, fruit and energy drinks. The products that are promoted to kids of color happen to be among the least healthy of the 644 products studied by researchers at the university.

Black children and teens saw 80 percent to 90 percent more ads compared with white youth, including more than twice as many for Sprite, 5-hour Energy, and Vitamin Water.

From 2008 to 2010, Latino children saw 49 percent more ads for sugary drinks and energy drinks on Spanish-language TV. Latino preschoolers saw more Spanish-language ads for Coca-Cola Classic, Kool-Aid, 7 Up, and Sunny D than older Latino children and teens did.

Colorlines notes that the two largest soda companies, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, have repeatedly promised to market less to children, who are more susceptible to advertising: “Coca-Cola, for example, has previously stated publicly that they wouldn’t market ads in TV, radio and print programming aimed at kids under the age of 12.”

But the report found that soda companies have just shifted to using more sophisticated and insidious forms of advertising that promise kids rewards for purchasing sugary drinks. Kids are exposed to these messages “often without their parents’ awareness.”

Companies’ targeting of minority children is a social justice issue as well as an economic one. Just like mortgage companies that focused their predatory lending on minority communities, soda companies are preying on a particularly vulnerable group (poor children) who are already suffering the ill effects of their product and have the most to lose from consuming more. For instance, these children are less likely to have health insurance to cover the numerous medical problems associated with obesity.

Last year, 17.2 million households in the United States were food insecure, the highest level on record, as the Great Recession continued to wreak havoc on families across the country. Of those 17.2 million households, 3.9 million included children. On Thanksgiving Day, here’s a look at hunger in America, as millions of Americans struggle to get enough to eat in the wake of the economic crisis:

17.2 million: The number of households that were food insecure in 2010, the highest number on record. They make up 14.5 percent of households, or approximately one in seven.

48.8 million: People who lived in food insecure households last year.

3.9 million: The number of households with children that were food insecure last year. In 1 percent of households with children, “one or more of the children experienced the most severe food-insecure condition measured by USDA, very low food security, in which meals were irregular and food intake was below levels considered adequate by caregivers.”

6.4 million: Households that experienced very low food security last year, meaning “normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.”

55: The percentage of food-insecure households that participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs (SNAP, WIC, School lunch program).

19.4: The percentage of food insecure households in Mississippi, which had the highest rate in the nation last year.

3.6 percent: The amount by which food prices increased last year.

30 percent: The amount by which food insecurity grew during the Great Recession.

44: The percentage increase in households using food pantries between 2007 and 2009.

20 million: The number of children who benefit from free and reduced lunch per day.

10.5 million: The number of eligible children who don’t receive their free and reduced lunch benefits.

$167.5 billion: The amount that the U.S. lost in 2010 due to hunger (lost educational attainment + avoidable illness + charitable giving to fight hunger). This doesn’t take into account the $94 billion cost of SNAP and other food programs.

8: The number of states (FL, TX, CA, IL, NY, OH, PA, GA) where the annual cost of hunger exceeds $6 billion.

Last year, “nearly half of the households seeking emergency food assistance reported having to choose between paying for utilities or heating fuel and food. Nearly 40 percent said they had to choose between paying for rent or a mortgage and food.” This Thanksgiving, as you sit down to enjoy a meal with family and friends, please spare a thought for those who, due to the country’s continuing economic woes, may not have enough to eat.

This holiday season, please consider donating to a local food bank. You can find one nearby or donate online through the Feeding America website. You can also give to Operation Homefront, a group that provides assistance to military families.

While some eager shoppers are preparing to wait in long lines when their favorite stores open on Black Friday, many Americans are already lining up at food banks, simply hoping to put food on the table this Thanksgiving.

In a heartbreaking report, CBS chronicles the plight of “America’s new poor” — many of whom used to be the very people who donated to food banks. But with millions out of work, foreclosure rates still high, and the country’s economic outlook as bleak as ever, yesterday’s givers have become today’s takers.

Take Forsyth County, near Atlanta. Despite having the highest average household income in Georgia, hundreds of these “newly-needy” file into local food banks:

“People lost their jobs and went from great incomes to no incomes,” said Sandy Beaver [who] leads The Place, Forsyth County’s biggest non-profit center for social services. She calls those who visit The Place “the new poor.” The Place’s main mission: Feed the hungry. [...]

“Many of our people who have come for assistance used to be our donors. And they’ll say, ‘I never thought I’d have to do this, never in my wildest dreams.’” [...]

People like these married retirees in their 70s, too embarrassed to appear on camera…They retired comfortably in their early 50s. But now, after bad investments, a ruined portfolio, and costly medical issues, they qualify for food stamps – and could lose the house.

“Taking the food was really tough,” the woman said. “The hard part was, we used to give it, and now I’m taking it back, you know?” she said, crying.

At one Forsyth high school, 8 percent of kids now get free lunch, double the number three years ago. And unfortunately, the situation Forsyth is not unusual. One in six Americans — 49 million people — isn’t sure where their next meal will come from. A record 15 percent of Americans are now receiving food stamps — a jump of about two-thirds since 2007.

Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, who are returning from combat to face higher unemployment rates than nearly any other group, are also struggling to get by. Raymond Price, an Afghanistan vet, says “All I want is a job. I don’t really want anybody’s handouts.” But with a family to feed, he came by a food bank last week for a box of non-perishables.

This holiday season, please consider donating to a local food bank. You can find one nearby or donate online through the Feeding America website. You can also give to Operation Homefront, a group that provides assistance to military families.

This meal is chock full of vegetables, according to the House GOP.

Earlier this year, the USDA made an attempt to bolster the nutrition guidelines for the federal school lunch program. Under the new guidelines, for instance, school lunches would be limited to one cup of starchy vegetables a week and the ability of schools to count tomato sauce on pizza towards their fruit and vegetables requirement would be scaled back. But House Republicans, in a new spending plan unveiled yesterday, have done away with those changes:

The spending bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. The department’s proposed guidelines would have attempted to prevent that.

The changes had been requested by food companies that produce frozen pizzas, the salt industry and potato growers. Some conservatives in Congress have called the push for healthier foods an overreach, saying the government shouldn’t be telling children what to eat.

According to a bill summary released by Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, these provisions are meant to “prevent overly burdensome and costly regulations.” What they will actually do is ensure that a steady flow of dollars continues toward certain favored food manufacturers, at the expense of children’s health.

“We are outraged that Congress is seriously considering language that would effectively categorize pizza as a vegetable in the school lunch program,” said Amy Dawson Taggart, the director of Mission: Readiness, a group advocating for healthier school lunches. “It doesn’t take an advanced degree in nutrition to call this a national disgrace.”

This is hardly the first time that the GOP has attacked attempts to boost the nutritional content of school lunches. Back in May, House Republicans derided the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which was signed into law late last year, as a “massive and costly” federal intrusion. They did this despite the fact that escalating obesity rates cost the nation $147 billion per year in direct medical costs.

As education policy analyst Theodora Chang has written, “student nutrition programs ensure that students are ready to learn and are not stymied by hunger. Schools are ideal locations for social services like healthy meals because they have unparalleled access to low-income students and their families.” Instead, the GOP has decided to roll back what little progress has been made in terms of school lunch nutrition.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is pushing a new amendment that would make it more difficult for people to receive food stamps by restricting eligibility requirements and eliminating a planned $9 billion funding increase for the program. Sessions says his plan is intended to reduce the deficit and combat fraud, which he claims is rampant. From ABC News’ Top Line today:

SESSIONS: No program in our government has surged out of control more dramatically than food stamps. And nothing is being done about it. [...] Multimillion dollar lottery winners are getting food stamps because the money is considered to be an asset not an income. One of the fast and furious gun buyers –

HOST: But hold on, for ever lottery winner that has food stamps, there’s probably a lot more people who really need them who have them, right?

SESSIONS: Well look, do you think there are four times as many people who need food stamps today as in 2001. That answers itself. [...] We cannot do this. We do not have the money. Congress doesn’t understand that we can’t afford to double the program every three years.

Watch it:

It’s shockingly ignorant at best and dishonest at worst for Sessions — the ranking GOP member of the Senate Budget Committee — to completely ignore the role the economy has played on food stamp usage. The cost of the program has jumped because more Americans are out of work and wages are down, thus more people need assistance. Food prices have also gone up, adding additional costs. But the cost of the program will come down on its own as the economy recovers and more people can afford to feed themselves.

In fact, the food stamp program has been critical for reducing poverty and pumping money into local economies during the down economy, so cutting it now would not only take food out of peoples’ mouths, but could slow down the recovery. No one is trying to “double the program every three years” as Sessions claims. (Currently, nearly one in five Alabamians is on Food Stamps.)

And while the senator suggests the program has grown due to fraud, in fact, errors in the food stamp program — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) –are currently at an all-time low, accounting for less than three percent of the program’s cost. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities:

To ensure that benefits are provided only to eligible households and in the proper amounts, SNAP has one of the most rigorous quality control systems of any public benefit program and, in recent years, has achieved its lowest error rates on record. In fiscal year 2009, even as caseloads were rising, states set new record lows for error rates. The net loss due to errors equaled only 2.7 percent of program costs in 2009. There is no evidence that program errors are driving up SNAP spending.

It’s worth noting that while Sessions claims the country can’t afford to feed the hungry, he has fought to preserve the Bush tax cuts for wealthy, subsides for big oil companies, and demanded new tax cuts for corporations, all of which also contribute to the deficit.