Causes In Food Insecurity

Food insecurity is the “state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food,” according to the Oxford Dictionary. It is a widespread problem on college campuses across the nation. While food insecurity only impacts 14% of households, 48% of college students claim to be food insecure. This problem disproportionately impacts first generation college students, students of color, and students who need financial aid, as noted by the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness.

In our course of study we have learned the difference between primary, secondary and tertiary prevention levels. Primary prevention is aimed at preventing or reducing the effects on populations. Primary prevention occurs when we educate our patients, families or the community, providing them with the tool of knowledge needed to prevent illness. My project on food insecurity promotes primary prevention in university students by attempting to identify those students experiencing food insecurity, then providing those students with the resources to obtaining supplemental food within their community.

According to the USDA's Economic Research Service, the food-insecure are those families in America that at times didn't know whether they had or could find enough food to meet their needs. This was due to the lack of money or other resources, such as government assistance or community food banks (USDA ERS - Food Security in the U.S.). In it's most recent study, the Economic Research Service found that as of 2013, 80.5 percent of families in the U.S. were food secure, leavinf over 49 million people food-insecure (USDA ERS - Food Security in the U.S.). Of that 49 million, nearly 9 million children lived in food-insecure households (USDA ERS - Food Security in the U.S.).

Food insecurity is a determent to health that has become more prevalent in low-income areas of the country. Food security is an important aspect of public health in which greater evidence is showing that food insecurity as a direct link to poor health. Food insecurity can be define as “the inability to acquire or consume and adequate diet quality or sufficient quantity of

According to the United Nations, food security is defined as “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (“Rome Declaration,” 1996). Canada has adopted this definition, although they monitor food insecurity per each household and analyze financial barriers causing the situation. Research has shown that 62.2% of households

Food insecurity is a term that was introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA labels the insecurity based on the severity with four different groups. One group is the Low Food Security; which means low quality, desirability or variety but no or little reduction of food. Very Low Food Security is reduced food intake and multiple disruptions of eating patterns. The opposite spectrum is High Food Security. This is no food limitations or no issues accessing food. Marginal food security is sufficient supply of food with some concern of ability to supply. (USDA, https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/definitions-of-food-security.aspx).

Even though payments from Social Security and Supplemental Security Income have played a critical part in an attempt to increase economic security among older adults, poverty still remains on the rise for this population. Many still live on limited incomes and have the modest savings. In 2013, 50% of people in Medicare possessed incomes of less than $23,000 which corresponds to 200% of poverty in 2015 (Cubanski et. al, 2015). Today, over 25 million people ages 60 or more are economically insecure living at or below 250% of the federal poverty level (FPL) (National Council on Aging, 2016). As a result, these individuals struggle with increasing housing and health care bills, lack of nutrition, inadequate access to transportation, and job

Nutrition is important for healthy life. Many people are still hungry around the world even though there is mass production of food. This is because of unhealthy food production. In today’s world we see many obese people because of high intake of high fat and cholesterol containing food. It is important to have a healthy diet/ nutritional intake for individuals to have good foundation for physical and mental health. Now a day’s healthy food is getting more expensive rather than unhealthy food. Poor people are forced to eat unhealthy food, while the rich can afford to eat whatever the please. Food insecurity is caused by individuals not having healthy food for their families due to their low income or political and

In 2013 almost 86% of households in america were food secure. This means that 14.3% of households in America were food insecure (meaning they were not able to provide food for themselves). 5.6% out of this 14.3% had extremely low food security. This means that these households had no money or resources available to acquire food. Although this amount of people being food insecure may seem high it has been slowly declining. In 2011, the amount of households that were food insecure was 14.9%. This decrease might seem very small, but in reality it means that thousands of households are now food secure.

Food insecurity can the idea of not knowing whether food will be available at the time, it can also be defined as deciding how the low income will be distributed from utilities to nourishment. Taking this into perspective, close to 88 percent of the American population does not have to worry about food insecurity, yet this issue affects 12 percent of Americans having to choose between keeping their families warm versus full. Although the term fed and full are used much differently when viewing a family with a low income. In most scenarios, low income families must reside in the low income neighborhoods, where they can obtain the basic of shelter. Still these neighborhoods lack the steady availability of nutritious foods. This issue arises for two reasons, affordability and lack of income. The lack of means to pay for these groceries holds to be the focal reason why grocers cannot be made readily obtainable for these areas let alone those with money variability (Berg 120). Aside from the lack of

By definition, a person who food insecure is someone who lacks reliable access to a sufficient quantity of nutritious food to sustain a healthy lifestyle. In the District of Columbia an estimated 12% of the population is “food insecure” and 14% struggle with hunger.

Food insecurity, a term coined by the United State Department of Agriculture in 2006, as inadequate, limited, or uncertain access to nutritious food. The term is a replacement for what the USDA prior to 2006, described as "food insecure with hunger" and characterized households in which one or more people were hungry at times during the year because they could not afford enough food.

Food Insecurity is defined as access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life, and at a minimum includes the following: the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods and the assured ability to acquire personally acceptable foods in a socially acceptable way, qualified by their involuntariness and periodicity. Even though food insecurity affects everyone in the household, it may also affect them differently. Food insecurity mostly exists whenever food security is limited. Uncertain or limited availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods results chronic diseases psychological, and suicidal syndrome (Cook & Frank, 2008)

One of most common problems in the world is food insecurity. It is not only happening in the third world countries, but it is also happening in the richest country in world, the USA. Food insecurity occurs when a family does not have enough food for all family members. The USDA confirms that 12.7 percent of U.S households are suffering from food insecurity. Food insecurity can be of two kinds: low food insecurity and very low food insecurity. In low insecurity households, family members just eat enough calories for their body, but their food is not nutritious. Low food insecurity makes up 7.4 percent of 12.7 of food insecurity households in the U.S, (USDA). The other type is very low food insecurity. The family members do not have enough food at specific times in the year because they lack money. This type makes up 4.9 percent out of 12.7 percent in the food insecurity, (USDA). Food insecurity most often happens in the households with children, especially households with children headed by a single man or a single woman. The USDA estimates that households with children headed by single woman have 31.6 percent chance of experiencing low food insecurity, and households with children headed by a single man have 21.7 percent chance for low food insecurity. The South has highest rate of food insecurity with 13.5 percent. The rate of food insecurity in the Northeast (10.8 percent) is lower than Midwest (12.2 percent). The rate of food insecurity according to states in the three

Food insecurity can be defined as the inability to acquire an adequate quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so. One in six Americans are food insecure. There are five components of food security, including quantity, quality, suitability, psychological, and social factors. Food insecurity can occur for a variety of reasons, the main one being poverty. Decreasing the amount of food wasted has the ability to feed millions of these Americans.