Study: 1 in 5 U.S. Latinos eat poor food

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Nearly one in five Hispanics in the United States does not eat nutritious food and one in 20 regularly goes hungry, a new study says.

The National Council of La Raza, a Washington-based Latino advocacy group, said "food insecurity" was nearly as bad for Hispanics as it was for African-Americans and much worse than it was for whites, The Washington Post reports.

This poses serious health and economic risks to the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group, the study says.

"Yet the Latino community is practically invisible when it comes to this issue," said co-author Jennifer Ng'andu. "Folks notice the presence of Latinos in their area, but they are not connecting it to the need for food assistance."

Poverty appears to be the main factor limiting Latinos' access to nutritious food, the study says. About 22 percent of U.S. Latinos are poor, compared with 25 percent of non-Hispanic blacks and 8 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

Latinos also often face linguistic, cultural and legal barriers to enrolling in government hunger programs, the study says.