It's understandable that people are worried about how these important benefits not being paid on time will affect families right away.This has made a lot of people worried and anxious about how they will pay their bills.

But the long-term effects are just as bad.This encounter will most likely leave behind trauma, even if the benefits come back.My research shows that millions of parents and kids who get through this will always remember it.

More and more proof backs this up, showing that even small changes in how people get food can have big effects.Women who are pregnant and don't eat enough are more likely to have their babies too soon, have babies that are too small, and have babies that don't grow as quickly as they should.When babies are hungry early on, it can change how they deal with stress and save energy.This makes it more likely that they will get diabetes or high blood pressure later in life.

The effects are also mental and physical for older kids.Kids who don't have enough food are more likely to have trouble with schoolwork and development, and they show higher levels of anxiety, sadness, and behavioral problems that may last into adulthood.

And the price doesn't stop with kids.Parents shouldn't have to fight to do the most basic thing for their child: feed them.People who care for others and are hungry are much more likely to feel hopeless and worried.And from what I've learned, these experiences change how families eat for years to come.The mothers in my book who went without something, whether it was as kids or as parents, never got over it.

Even when things were somewhat stable, the mothers' experiences of not having enough food for themselves or their children changed how they fed their children.The mothers I met had cupboards that were as deep as the eye could see and kept cans of beans and soup in them.They also bought extra freezers to store pounds of frozen meat.They had learned, often the hard way, that food today didn't mean food tomorrow.

These mothers also promised to never let their kids go to bed hungry because of what had happened to them in the past.For these moms, how full their kids were was a big part of how well they were doing as moms.

But I learned that focusing too much on how full kids were often meant that they weren't getting enough nutrients.Women who didn't have enough food usually tried to give their kids the meals they liked and would eat to make sure they got enough to eat. These meals were usually soothing, familiar, and not very healthy.These moms couldn't put nutrition first in a situation like this, when things were so unstable.This meant that kids from poorer families often ate fewer fresh meals at home than kids from richer families.

Cuts and delays in Snap benefits not only make the poorest people hungrier, but they may also make the nutritional gaps even bigger.Families that don't have enough food already have a hard time eating healthy meals.This crisis made it even harder.This is true now, when money is tight, and in the long run, when not having enough food leaves lasting emotional and behavioral scars.

That's why it's important to restore benefits right away now that the government is open again.

But this isn't enough.We also need to make sure that there is never another budget freeze.Congress could do this by making an advance allocation, like it does for many other programs that give people money, such as Medicaid.This would make sure that Snap is never in danger again during a shutdown.This would protect the best anti-hunger program in the country and make sure that no parent has to worry about how to feed their child because lawmakers didn't do anything.

Even when Snap benefits are fully restored, millions of families in the US will still go hungry every day.But we have to make sure that this kind of destruction doesn't happen again.If we do, we might be able to keep the next generation from having to learn, like my foster sister Carla did, that food doesn't always mean food tomorrow.