Causes Of Food Insecurity

“We cant close the gap on health unless we talk about nutrition”. The issue of food security can have a negative impact on the wellbeing of individuals and families in Australia, there are a number of different groups who are more vulnerable to food insecurity than others, due to social whereabouts. Food insecurities is defined as “ access by all people at all times to enough food for an active healthy life” by saying this Australia has been shown as food secure but this has people asking “why are certain groups and cultures running out of food to feed there families through out the year, if we are food secure?’ about 5% of Australians suffer from food insecurities this is usually caused by the access they have to food or the inadequate food

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.

For most Americans, the word poverty means insufficient access to to housing, clothing and nutritious food that meet their needs for a healthy life. A consequence of poverty is a low socioeconomic status that leads to being exposed to poor nutrition. Since food and dietary choices are influenced by income, poverty and nutrition go hand in hand. There are many important factors that threaten the nutritional status of poor people. The number one factor is not having enough money to buy food of good quality and quantity. Not having enough money can have a profound impact on the diets of low-income people. Limited financial resources may force low income people to make difficult decisions about what kind and how much food to buy. Limited

The biosocial factors that predict food insecurity do not discriminate against the economic circumstances found in Canadian households and aligns with both low-income and higher-income populations. These factors were identified as single-parent households, people with rental

Obesity rates in the US are rising due to food insecurity. One in six people in the U.S. are food insecure, while two-thirds of adults and one-third Americans are overweight or obese.14 Studies have found that wealthy districts have three times as many supermarkets compared to the poor.15 Kevin Conocannon of the USDA noted in an interview that people in poorer areas sometimes have narrower variety of food options.16 SNAP recipients face barriers to achieving nutritious diets due to lack of availability in their neighborhood. Healthy food often comes with higher costs, so most people with lower income result to eating foods with lower cost and higher calories. According to a 2009 report by the USDA, as many as 23.5 million Americans live more than one mile from a supermarket with limited access to a vehicle.17 Food Deserts are particularly prevalent in low-income communities.18

Nearly one of four Hispanic households are considered to have food insecurity, meaning the amount of income they depend on is limited and not enough, therefore making it impossible for these families to obtain the adequate healthy food

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 affects more than 48 million Americans every year (McMillan). Those who reside in food insecure homes can generally not afford healthy foods, therefore increasing the incidence of obesity and other resultant chronic disorders. According to The American Journal of Public Health, “Food insecurity has been shown to diminish dietary quality and affect nutritional intake and has been associated with chronic morbidity (e.g., type 2 diabetes, hypertension) and weight gain” (Nguyen, Shuval, Bertmann, & Yaroch, 2015, p. 1453). Those who live without adequate access to nutritional food, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, have higher rates of obesity not because of the amount of food they eat, but the poor nutritional value of affordable meals.

For households with children there are 18 items and for households without children there are 10 items questionnaire that focuses on food security in the household. Each item is a food insecure behavior strategy or food insecure condition, and is answered in a dichotomous manner of yes they meet the condition or use the behavior or no they do not meet the condition or use the behavior. If a household has zero, one, or two yes answers they are deemed food secure. A household is food insecure if they have more than three yes answers. There can be some identification of persistent food security by examining how often behavior modifications because of lack of funds for food occurred. The questionnaire asked individuals how often certain behaviors occur, for example individuals identify whether these insistences occurred almost every month, some months but not every month, and only 1 or 2 months (CPS-December Food Security Supplement). From this food security measurement one can also differentiate those who are designated as very low food security (if they report yes to more than six of the items) or low food security (Coleman-Jensen, Gregory, & Singh,

Food security is to have availability to food, whether it be for basic nutritional needs, special dietary needs, for example, lactose-free, or personal preferences. For a household to be considered food secure, the tenants must not be living in hunger.  In recent years land degradation, climate change, global water crisis, and greedy land deals, are the main causes of food insecurity.  From a global report in 2006, there are more overweight people (over one billion) than undernourished people (an estimated 800 million).  There are up to 2 billion people in the world, that have a shortage of food security due to several levels of poverty.  The population increases and people desire new and different foods, even though there is already enough, however, this cannot happen because the requirements needed to do this are not available. This leads to challenges in the world, such as accommodating the growing population with food at all times.

Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this are working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government have now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors and unemployment have cause food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien,

According to UN (1990), household food security defined as “The ability of household members to assure themselves sustained access to sufficient quantity and quality of food to live active and healthy life.” FAO (1992) defines as food security is referred in terms of access to food, availability of food, and also in terms of resource distribution to produce food and purchasing power to buy food, where it is produced. Another definition given by USAID (1992) defines food security as: “when all people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet their dietary needs for a productive and healthy life.” Based on this food security includes at a minimum the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, and assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (such as without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies). According to World Bank

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.