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How is Hunger Defined?

What is hunger?

In the past two decades new terms have emerged to describe hunger in the U.S.:

• Food security
  Assured access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life including a) the availability of a nutritious and safe food supply, and b) the ability to get food in socially acceptable ways (without resorting to charity, scavenging or other emergency tactics).
• Food insecurity
  Whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food or the ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways is limited or uncertain.
• Hunger
  The uneasy or painful sensation caused by involuntary lack of food which over time may result in malnutrition¹.

How is hunger measured?

Since 1995, rates of household food security and hunger have been measured through a survey conducted as part of the Current Population Survey.² This widely accepted, statistically-verified survey tool was devised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Census Bureau in cooperation with several anti-hunger organizations. Answers to the 18-question survey result in classifying households as food secure, food insecure without hunger, and food insecure with hunger.

Members of food insecure households worry their food will run out before they get money to buy more and report that they couldn't afford to eat balanced meals. Household members can be food insecure (which can involve compromises in food quality and/or food safety, anxiety about having enough food) and still get enough food.

Households with moderate hunger report, in addition to the other problems with quality and anxiety, reduction in the quantity of food (usually for the mother and/or other adults in the household). When households begin to reduce the quantity of food for the children as well as the adults, this is considered the most severe form of food insecurity: adults in the household can no longer buffer their children from food shortages.

What are the consequences of insufficient food?

Inadequate food intake may result in nutrient deficiencies and poor developmental outcomes.³ Impacts of childhood hunger include:

• limited growth - short stature
• restricted brain development
• reduced ability to fight off illness - a child is more likely to get sick and miss school
• iron deficiency - this reduces ability to fight off illness and reduces concentration
• limited child's cognitive development, learning potential and ability to succeed in school

An expanded presentation on health consequences of food insecurity and hunger is available.

Footnotes:

1. Life Sciences Research Office of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
2. http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/foodsecurity/
3. http://www.centeronhunger.org/

Content Contact: Anne Hoisington