by Dan McMurry

About the author: Dan McMurry is an associate professor of sociology at Middle Tennessee State University at Murfreesboro.

In January 1986, the Harvard Physician Task Force on Hunger in America published a report entitled Hunger Counties 1986. The main finding of this report was a list of the 150 counties with the “worst” hunger problem in the United States. In addition to attracting the attention of academics, the report had an intense impact on the media and politicians. Shortly after the report was released, newspaper and television crews swarmed over the counties listed in the report, pitting local officials attempting to defend their efforts to aid the needy in their counties against the damning statistics in the report, complete with the number from 1 to 150 the county had acquired on...