True indeed. Meth really is a cultural and social "black plague" that Iowa has and will be struggling with for many years to come. What meth does to an individual is appalling, but what it does to innocent family members, especially children, is truly criminal.
Iowa had, by far, the worst economy of any state over the last 50 years (thats another point I like to discuss), but rampant hunger is not a problem Iowa really faces. However, rampant poor nutrition and low physical activity is something that is a problem, just as it is in the rest of the country, and the western world. I drive through the poorest neighborhoods in Des Moines on a weekly basis, and see elementary and secondary schools filled with morbidly obese children at an alarming percentage.
Lazy parenting, in my opinion. Give a kid pop, candy, chips, a TV, and a handful of video games and they won’t come out of their rooms for a whole day. The only thing a kid cares about these days is nintendo or xbox. When I was a kid, the most prized possession was a schwinn. You had to pedal it to make it work. Moms used to cook real food back then from scratch. And there was only one tv per house with only three channels on it. If two of those channels came in well, you were happy. Now every kid has his own tv with cable and his own collection of movies and video games and a cell phone and a computer with internet. There's no reason to ever leave his room, except to go to the store to buy more video games. Why wouldn't kids be fat nowdays?