Our Minneapolis Principal Investigator and Hennepin Healthcare pediatrician Michael Arenson, MD, talked about the effects of food insecurity on the health of young children and their families with WCCO’s Jason DeRusha during the End Hunger Together Radiothon to benefit Second Harvest Heartland on Feb. 3, 2026.
JASON DERUSHA: I want to bring Dr. Michael Arenson into the conversation. He is part of the Department of Pediatrics at Hennepin Healthcare. He’s a pediatrician, and he really has been focusing on the importance of hunger, the importance of taking care of our young people. Dr. Arenson on the John Schuster Coldwell Banker Hotline. Thanks for being with us, Michael.
MICHAEL ARENSON, MD: Hey, good afternoon.
DERUSHA: Talk to me a little bit about the importance of nutrition and access to nutrition when we’re looking at sort of the big picture of our young people in our community right now.
ARENSON: When it comes to kids, hunger and food insecurity, the impacts are fast and last for quite a while. So, you know, it’s not just about hunger necessarily. Food insecurity is linked to worse physical health, learning difficulties, mental health, anxiety, depression, and hospital visits. And so, you know, in the same way that your car doesn’t go very far without much fuel for long, kids’ bodies and brains are developing at rapid, rapid paces. So even short periods without reliable nutrition and access to nutrition can have long-lasting effects.
DERUSHA: You wrote an op-ed for the Star Tribune when the SNAP cuts were getting so much attention. And the headline of your piece, it says, “Band-Aids on a tornado: SNAP cuts are tearing through Minnesota families.” And your main point here really is that long-term effect, right? That even just a short period of time when young people don’t have access to food, you see it in your practice, right?
ARENSON: Yeah, more, honestly, more now than ever before, especially in Minnesota and Minneapolis. You know, when I wrote that, this image of a tornado coming for the families that I see every day in the clinic just kept popping into my head. And it’s because they’re, you know, experiencing hunger and food insecurity at an increasing rate.
So, grocery prices are obviously up. I think the number is like 30% over the last five years. At the same time, Congress enacted a H.R. 1 bill that is reducing SNAP, on a federal level, and forcing states to bear more brunt of the cost, which is unsustainable for basically all states. So, Minnesota would have to make up, I think, over $120 million, just find it out of thin air. And the other thing about it is that at the same time, they’re cutting Medicaid reimbursements and eligibility for SNAP. And so, it’s hard to communicate how much chaos this is causing for families.