Diana Becker Cutts, a pediatrician at Hennepin County Medical Center, is encouraged that health care companies like UnitedHealth are jumping into the issue. As she put it, “they ought to be.”

Cutts is a practicing physician who saw underweight babies and toddlers. She saw older kids with health problems including obesity, and she still finds that people have a hard time connecting obesity to the problem of not having enough food.

“If you look at the foundations of health, nutrition is a big part,” she said. “The population that is the biggest utilizer of health care services is the same population that is most likely to be food insecure.”