Each winter many low-income families face the difficult choice between heating their homes or buying food. A national study released in the November issue of Pediatrics shows that the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), also known as fuel assistance, can help protect young children's growth and health from seasonal pressures put on their family to "heat or eat."

When babies or toddlers in food-insecure families are stressed by cold, their immature bodies have to allocate scarce calories to generate heat rather than sustain normal growth. Undernourished bodies lack the energy to fuel the immune system so more young children whose families have to choose to heat or eat end up in the hospital - and the average pediatric hospitalization costs more than $11,000.

The study, Heat or Eat: The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and Nutritional and Health Risks Among Children Less Than 3 Years Old, evaluates the associations between LIHEAP participation and young children's growth and development. Researchers found that children living in households receiving fuel assistance were less likely to be undernourished and had lower odds of hospitalization than children in comparable households not receiving assistance. LIHEAP works to give babies' bodies energy assistance for growth and health, and helps prevent the expense of hospitalization.

According to Mark Wolfe, Executive Director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), LIHEAP has sufficient funding to reach only about one-fifth of income eligible families. "Congressional allocations for LIHEAP have dropped to $2 billion this year, down from $3.2 billion last year," Wolfe noted, "Many families are in for a long, cold winter." Energy prices have increased by about a third from 2004, when the study ended, to 2006.

Richard Kogan, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says that taking prices and caseload into account, Congress squeezed funding for LIHEAP in the last two years harder than at any time in the two-decade history of the program.

Dr. Diana Cutts, a pediatrician at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN, says "Doctors don't understand the budget battles. We see in our clinics how LIHEAP is very good medicine that protects kids from health risks and hospitalizations. The problem is that the dose is never enough. Each year the program is severely under-funded leaving out more than 80 percent of the families who need it. It's tough to play politics with malnourished infants."

Learn how you can help by showing your support for LIHEAP.