Food Insecurity Essay

School lunches are often unsung heroes of many modern American households. Frequently overlooked and disregarded because of their stigma, school lunches are a key ingredient that may help make the world a better place. Unknowingly, great numbers of individuals in our communities deal with food insecurities every day of their lives. It baffles me that in an advanced society many people do not have the resources to provide food for themselves or their families. Until it affected me personally, I was unaware nor passionate about the struggles of food insecurity. My passion for solving food insecurity in my local community has led me to gain both experience and leadership through understanding and advocating for those around me.

Listening to conversations about food on campus, I found that there was a common theme last year: it was difficult to find healthy food on campus.

Poverty is a serious issue in Canada needs to be addressed promptly. Poverty is not simply about the lack of money an individual has; it is much more than that. The World Bank Organization defines poverty by stating that, “Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time”. In Canada, 14.9 percent of Canada’s population has low income as Statistics Canada reports, which is roughly about two million of Canadians in poverty or on the verge of poverty. In addition, according to an UNICEF survey, 13.3 percent of Canadian children live in

According to WHO, food security is defined as existing 'when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life' (WHO, 2015). Low income jobs and unemployment leads to food insecurity. On a larger Canadian scale, a study was done in 2006 to observe if households earning minimum wage in Nova Scotia can afford a nutrient rich diet. They found that people earning minimum wage do not meet basic needs, i.e. a nutrient rich diet. Wage increases and supplements, along with supports for expenses such as childcare and transportation were indicated to address the issue of meeting the basic needs (Williams, 2006) In order to combat food insecurity in Toronto, policy action needs to be started to preserve the land's ability to produce food. Another way to combat food desserts and food insecurity is to welcome the idea of globalization. Globalization, as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the act of globalizing; the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets (Merriam-Webster, 2015) welcomes the opportunities for new and often times higher paying jobs, as well as the transport of goods and technology across the countries. However, there are setbacks when it comes to globalization. Smaller, less

Food insecurity is defined as “the lack of access to enough food to ensure adequate nutrition.”1 The Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS) reported that 14.6% of US households were food insecure during at least some portion of 2008 (up 11.1% from 2007), the highest levels recorded since monitoring began in 1995.2 Food insecurity is a concern of under consumption and obesity is a disease of over consumption, yet both outcomes may coexist, seemingly incongruously, within the same household.2 The most popular explanation is that low-cost, energy-dense foods linked to obesity are favored by financially constrained households, who are the most likely to be food insecure.2 Another theory, focusing on environmental context net of individual circumstance, argues that obesity and insecurity are both symptoms of malnutrition, occurring in neighborhoods where nutritious foods are unavailable or unaffordable.2 A separate literature researches environmental roles in poor nutritional outcomes, recent studies link obesity as well as atherosclerosis and diabetes to the food environment, the local context of available food items.2 The theory is that local inaccessibility to healthy foods influences diet composition, a claim supported by evidence.2 Especially in poorer neighborhoods, food options are often limited to fast food restaurants, convenience stores, or grocery stores more poorly stocked both in

First and foremost, lack of indigenous food security is based on their economic poverty because of their isolated location, high shipping costs and the health impact that comes from this isolation and low income. Kangiqsujuaq is an isolated community in the northern most part of Quebec. The community is predominately indigenous people. In a questionnaire given to the inhabitants of this area, it was found that due to their economic status the residents were reducing their food consumption every month because of high cost and low income (Brown et al., 2012). Because of these findings, it was concluded that their food insecurity was chronic rather than temporary, and this is consistent with poverty related to unemployment and under-employment,

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

everyday, you are probably wondering why nationwide hunger is an issue. Families that are subject to poverty generally have little money, goods, and don’t often have much support. Economic income does determine if a child is more likely to go hungry or not. Right here in the Central Valley and Imperial County have the highest percentage of child hunger. Due to high unemployment rates, people are having harder times to feed their families. Because of this Feeding America discovered that these families are forced to make the choice between feeding their household or paying bills and rent to provide a roof and warm bed. Even with organizations such as Hungry Harvest, Feed the Children, Meals on Wheels, Feeding America and No Kid Hungry, studies continue to show that nationwide hunger is still a serious issue in the United States. In order to solve this problem more people need to be made aware of how important it is to help those that don’t have the same luxuries and to create new organizations and programs that lower income families can benefit

Food security has three core components. These are food availability, accessibility and use of food (FAO, 2015, Welsh, 1998). 12.5% of household in Canada are suffering from food insecurity (Boddy and Roblin, 2017). Food insecurity is higher in immigrants compare to the Canadians (Health Canada, 2012, Welsh, 1998, Toronto Food Policy Council, 2013). Moreover, the food desert is another factor of food security where there is a lack of access to the food stores, fruit, and vegetables (Center for Disease control, 2012). Ethnic vegetables play an important role in the food security and nutrition of the South Asian immigrants (Quadir and Danesh,

“Food insecurity isn’t a measure of hunger; it is based on the measure of a person’s financial circumstances and their perception of how much food they can afford to buy.” It is estimated that 31 million people in the United States have experienced either food insecurity or actual hunger (George, 1). Roughly a third of food insecure households have  “very low food security.” And the number of people going hungry has grown dramatically in the U.S. “increasing to 48 million by 2012 (McMillan,1) has caused one in five children to grow up in poverty which has affected academic performance and social skills”. “In 1980 there were

Food insecurity is defined as when an individual has inconsistent and inadequate access to a sufficient amount of nutritious food preventing him or her from maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It is typically associated with limited financial  It is sometimes classified as a public health concern and is currently a growing issue as the number of individuals suffering from food insecurity is increasing according to Statistics Canada.   Food insecurity has its greatest impact on the individual itself and an impact on the Government of Ontario and mayors of the cities within Ontario.  It is an important issue as it can more issues to branch out from it  such as famine (long term hunger), increased health care costs and more. Thus, food insecurity has many impacts on the person itself and it can cause more issues to build upon this one issue.

Canada is regarded as one of the wealthiest industrialized countries in the world. This indication is contrary to the well-being reality affecting Canadians. Despite being part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD), Canada has lagged behind her otherwise wealthy counterparts in the industrialized countries being position 19 out of 22 nations (Breznitz and Zysman, 2013). This has been attributed to the precarious levels of poverty in a majority of Canadian households. The country has not recognized any official poverty measurement although other universal measures such as LICO is used for measuring relative poverty, a more determinable measure of poverty for wealthy countries.

World hunger has been a constant problem throughout the ages. It is a problem that should be able to be solved easily, yet there are still 1.02 billion undernourished people worldwide. With the world population being 6.7 billion people, and the Earth producing more than enough food for this amount of people, why is it that there are hungry, malnourished people all around the globe?

This is not due to the lack of food, but due to the lack of culturally appropriate food. Khan, 2012 examines the existing policies and initiatives to address food insecurity in the Waterloo region using physical and economic access to the food, religious and cultural adequacy of the food and food system environmental and social effect. Applied to the criteria to the south Asian Muslim communities in the Waterloo region in a case study analysis the author finds that the current food system is largely industrial and containing major gaps in fulfilling the criteria to access food, sustainability, social justice, cultural and spiritual attitudes. They find that the food system partially meets the criteria or even fail to meet the criteria in case of South Asian population. He found that, the current governance arrangement to address the issue of food insecurity result in the exclusion of the immigrant population and a multicultural policy to address the immigrant food insecurity issues (Khan,

The types and amounts of food that are consumed and used by the human body for fuel in daily life not only affect peoples’ physical health, but mental health as well. Generally, it is the dietary behavior and choices that people make that influence their lives in the long run. Depending on whether these decisions are positive or negative, this takes a huge toll on an individual’s nutritional and mental statuses. Among the field of health research, food-mood disorders are significantly deemed as a growing concern throughout many populations in the world. Common causes for eating disorders such as depression, stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, societal pressure, loneliness, etc. However, one underlying factor that may contribute to such disorders is food insecurity. Food insecurity can be defined as an uncertainty or inability in having access to nutritionally adequate foods due to lack of knowledge, financial stability, or self-confidence (Davison & Kaplan, 2015). This issue is currently being studied more thoroughly by health researchers to improve and promote health awareness in the general population.