Shh !!!

"Shh" actually stands for Scatacook Helping the Hungry!

Started by the Scatacook District Council, this district wide initiative encourages participation in the Boy Scouts of America's "Good Turn for America" program. Details of this program can be found at the Good Turn for America Web Site.

How does it work?

The Shh program at Pack 570 is all about collecting food donations for needy families in our area. This is our way of contributing to the Shh program. Each scout is encouraged to bring a non-perishable food donation to our monthly pack meetings. This food is then brought to local charities / food banks in our town.

Here are some facts taken from the BSA's Good Turn for America Web Site :

Food

During 2002 it is estimated there were 34.9 million people who lived in households that at some time were uncertain of having or unable to acquire enough food for all of their members because of insufficient money or resources.

Overall, households with children had more than twice the rate of food insecurity as those without children.

It is estimated that 8.5 million people including 2.9 million children live in homes that experience hunger: where meals are frequently skipped or who go without food for a whole day [ U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Household Food Security in the United States, 2002]

Millions of poor children suffer from chronic under-nutrition, the under-consumption of essential nutrients and food energy. Nutrient deficiencies can lead to serious health problems, including impaired cognitive development, growth failure, physical weakness, anemia and stunting [ Tufts University School of Nutrition]

Shelter

About 14 million people pay more than 300 percent of their monthly income for rent and utilities, and more than 6.7 percent pay more than 50 percent of their income for rent. One poor family in seven lives in housing which is severely physically inadequate.

Between 1997 and 1999 there was a nine percent drop in the number of rental units available to very low income renters. [Habitat for Humanity]

According to a 1999 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report, 4.9 million households and 10.9 million individuals face "worst-case housing needs." These families:

To afford the median fair-market price of a two-bedroom rental unit in the United States, a worker would have to earn a wage of $12.47 per hour, 233 percent of the current federal minimum wage of $5.35 per hour. [Habitat for Humanity]

In 1999, it cost an average of $580 per month to rent a house. For 14.8 million U.S. households that make $10,000 or less per year, a year's rent is about 80 percent of their annual income. [Habitat for Humanity]

Healthy Living

The federal Department of Health and Human Services puts the cost of overweight and obese Americans at $117 billion in 2000 and said that being overweight resulted in 300,000 deaths a year.

According to a poll commissioned in May by the Harvard School of Public Health, obesity surpassed smoking as a public health concern, with 79 percent of those polled saying it was a major issue.

The recommended amount of physical activity for high school students is at least 30 minutes of moderate activity (does not cause sweating or heavy breathing) five or more days per week, or at least 20 minutes of vigorous activity three or more days per week.

Regular physical activity lessens the risk of heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, arthritis, and obesity.
Exercise can also improve symptoms associated with mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. [National Center for Health Statistics, Health, United States, 2003]

In 2000, poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000) was second only to tobacco (435,000) as the most common actual causes of death in the United States. [Centers for Disease Control]

HEALTHIERUS WEB SITE: Prevention Makes Common Cents, US Dept of Health and Human Services

Expenditures for health care in the United States continue to rise and are estimated to reach $1.66 trillion in 2003. Much of these costs can be attributed to the diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases and conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and asthma.

Approximately 129 million U.S. adults are overweight or obese which costs this Nation anywhere from $69 billion to $117 billion per year.
In 2000, an estimated 17 million people (6.2 percent of the population) had diabetes, costing the U.S. approximately $132 billion. People with diabetes lost more than 8 days per year from work, accounting for 14 million disability days.

Heart disease and stroke are the first and third leading causes of death in the United States. In 2003 alone, 1.1 million Americans will have a heart attack. Cardiovascular diseases cost the Nation more than $300 billion each year.

Approximately 23 million adults and 9 million children have been diagnosed with asthma at some point within their lifetime, with costs near $14 billion per year.
In 2003, it is estimated that the U.S. will spend $1.66 trillion on health care expenditures. Health care spending is growing faster than the gross domestic product (GDP) and is projected to account for 17.7 percent of the GDP by 2012, up from 14.1 percent in 2001. A small number of chronic disorders-such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases-account for the majority of deaths each year, and the medical care costs of people with chronic diseases account for more than 75 percent of the nation's medical care costs. As the population of the United States ages substantially over the next several decades, the prevalence of chronic diseases--and their impact on health care costs--will likely increase.

According to a recent study by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), less than a third of US adults engage in regular leisure-time physical activity, and only about one-fifth of adults engage in a high level of overall physical activity.(8) One study looked at adults who were trying to lose or not gain weight and found that less than 20 percent of the individuals were following recommendations about increasing physical activity and reducing calories. Also notable is a finding that only 42.8 percent of obese people who had routine checkups in the past months had been urged during those visits to lose weight.