Food insecurity in the U.S. has skyrocketed over the past year as millions of Americans have faced pandemic-related job losses.

The Feeding America national network, which consists of 200 food banks and 60,000 partner food pantries and meal programs, boosted food distribution by over 53% from April through December 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, in order to keep up with unprecedented levels of demand. Feeding America supplied 6.1 billion meals in 2020.

Malnutrition has also gotten worse amid the pandemic, as many Americans increased their junk food intake to ease the stress of the economic lockdowns.

In an effort to address the growing food insecurity problem, the American Rescue Act passed this month includes $12 billion in key investments to food assistance programs, as well as $1,400 checks to Americans earning up to $75,000 annually, and an increase in unemployment benefits.

The Covid relief package also includes a temporary 15% increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for low-income families. Close to 22.5 million U.S. adults, or 10.5% of the population, reported there was sometimes or often not enough for them to eat in the last seven days, according to the most recent Census Household Pulse data from February 17 to March 1.

Pier Luigi Sigismondi, president of Dole Packaged Foods, told Yahoo Finance that government relief programs are “helping people just get the basic needs of the day.”

Sigismondi said the Dole Packaged Foods company, a multinational producer of fruits and vegetables, is committed to addressing both food insecurity and malnutrition. “It’s a tragedy today,” he said. “More than 675,000 people dying every year [from diseases attributed to malnutrition]. And this is just as tragic if not more, than what COVID has been.”

Over the past three decades, obesity rates have tripled among children, doubled among adults – and quadrupled among teenagers. Obesity-related diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease that stem from malnutrition contribute to approximately 678,000 deaths annually in the U.S, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has listed obesity as an underlying medical condition putting Americans at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19, which has killed 543,479 people in the U.S.

“Malnutrition is about not having the essential nutrients that you need to thrive during the day,” said Sigismondi. “When you eat excess amounts of sugars, when you eat excess amounts of saturated fats, when it’s all about intense processed foods....[it’s] not helping you from a health perspective.”

Dole Packaged Foods launched the Sunshine for All Investment Fund last month to address the issue of malnutrition around the world. It provides $2 million annually to address the issues of food access, sustainability, and waste. “America, for us, is the biggest market. And we hope that the majority of these funds will actually go there,” said Sigismondi.

America faces a nutritional paradox, Sigismondi said. “Sadly, the poorest people are the most obese. And that’s correlated with statistics. It’s not just me saying that, but it’s a reality that we see in numbers,” he said. Obesity rates are higher in low-income counties in the U.S, according to the CDC.

“We believe that junk food is the food that sadly is killing people,” said Sigismondi. “[It’s] a fraction of the cost of a good salad in any city in America.”

Dole Packaged Foods is focused on addressing the cost of nutritional food along with improving consumer awareness about malnutrition.

“We’re a drop in the ocean, but we believe that by creating a company or business model that does good financially, but also from a social point of view, others would sort of join us and hopefully together as an industry and also working directly with many other entrepreneurs, we can drive that change,” he said.

More from Sibile:

Why YouTube is a ‘natural home’ for Demi Lovato’s ‘dark moments’ revelations

Goldman Sachs is investing $10 billion in ‘the best bet you can make in America’

$1,400 stimulus checks plus $300 monthly checks for parents in relief plan is ‘critical’: professor

Why not getting this right could mean lower lifetime earnings for women: Lilly Ledbetter

Gender and racial bias restrain US economy, costing $2.6 trillion: Bank of America

Find live stock market quotes and the latest business and finance news