In the last 12 months, did you or your children:

Eat less than you felt you should because there wasn't enough money for food?

Not eat, even though you were hungry, because there wasn't enough money for food?

Lose weight because there wasn't enough money for food?

Or, not eat for a whole day because there wasn't enough money for food?

Such questions — stark, harsh, personal and bitingly direct — are just a few of those used in a new government survey on hunger in America. Released earlier this week, the review doesn't merely provide a brief glimpse of an ongoing and prevalent problem in the United States.

It hits America squarely between the eyes.

Hunger in America is worsening. Denying that fact is useless. Forty-nine million people — 14.6 percent of U.S. households — struggled to have enough food in 2008. That's an increase of more than 3 percentage points from 2007.

Hunger in America transcends demographic groups; black families, Hispanic families and single-parent families have the highest rates of what the government calls "food insecurity," but no group is immune. That more than 85 percent of U.S. households were food secure last year doesn't marginalize the steep rise in America's problem. Nor does it lessen the necessity of President Obama's bid to end childhood hunger in the United States by 2015.

States with large populations of the aforementioned at-risk groups are particularly vulnerable to problems with hunger. Mississippi, the perpetual and dubious winner of many last-place rankings on social issues, has the United States' highest rate of residents classified as food insecure (17.4 percent). Alabama isn't immune, either; its rate is well into double digits (13.3 percent.)

The culprit? There is no sole villain. Historically, hunger in America is intertwined with any number of conspirators, from joblessness to lack of education to the struggles immigrants face in a new country. Yet, the government survey leaves little doubt that the Great Recession deserves high blame for the strong rise in the number of Americans without enough food to eat. That's particularly true for those already at risk before the fiscal downturn hit.

Today, go ahead and wince. Because of the recession's seemingly never-ending effects, food insecurity is expected to worsen when this year's data is collected in 2010. That's why Washington must seek ways to alleviate hunger, particularly for children and the infirm.

The prevalence of hunger among certain groups has long been one of America's strongest contradictions. The United States remains the world's most prosperous country, despite the widespread effects of the recession. In spite of sweeping changes in modern-day agriculture, America's breadbasket — and its post-recession bank accounts — can feed all within the nation's borders.

Hunger in America isn't because there isn't enough food.

A nation that feeds its downtrodden, its unemployed and its at-risk children is a nation with a sound soul. Keeping that in mind is doubly important as America enters the holiday season.