{"id":169130,"date":"2021-02-16T07:15:01","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T12:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=169130"},"modified":"2021-02-12T08:02:25","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T13:02:25","slug":"what-is-food-insecurity-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2021\/02\/what-is-food-insecurity-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Food Insecurity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the many striking images from the pandemic is an\u00a0aerial photo showing cars<\/a>\u00a0in seemingly endless rows lined up at a food bank in San Antonio, Texas.<\/p>\n

A jarring awareness of\u00a0food insecurity<\/a>\u00a0in the U.S. has accompanied the health and financial concerns brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, with\u00a0record numbers of people visiting food banks<\/a>\u00a0for the first time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even those not immediately in need were made increasingly aware of food insecurity in 2020, amid conversations not only of the economic fallout of the coronavirus, but also how structural racism has\u00a0disproportionately left Black and Hispanic households at risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This conversation is overdue. Long consumed with\u00a0the obesity epidemic<\/a>, Americans have found it harder to\u00a0grapple with the issue of food insecurity<\/a>\u00a0as a wealthy nation.<\/p>\n

As a\u00a0researcher of food policy<\/a>, I have seen how people have focused more attention on addressing the issue of food insecurity in recent years. In 2000, just seven research articles with \u201cfood insecurity\u201d in the title or abstract were listed in the leading database of biomedical literature. The total rose to 137 in 2010 and to 994 by 2020.<\/p>\n

I am currently conducting the first\u00a0National Institutes of Health-funded study of the charitable food system<\/a>, which includes\u00a0food banks<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 nonprofits that procure, store and distribute food, usually to smaller agencies \u2013 and food pantries, which distribute food directly to households that need it.<\/p>\n

Although awareness of food insecurity is growing, it is important to understand what is meant by the term and how it fits with other food access concepts, such as hunger and food sovereignty.<\/p>\n

What is Food Insecurity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture),\u00a0food insecurity<\/a>\u00a0occurs when households are unable to acquire adequate food because they have insufficient money and other resources.<\/p>\n

Food insecurity is measured at the household level and reflects limited access to food. This makes it\u00a0different from hunger<\/a>, which is a physiological condition experienced by an individual. The USDA does not measure hunger in the U.S. Instead, the agency sees it as a consequence of people having limited access to food.<\/p>\n

The USDA has\u00a0measured food insecurity<\/a>\u00a0for 25 years. This metric captures both the uncertainty of not knowing where one\u2019s next meal is coming from and the disruptions of normal eating patterns and reductions in food intake.<\/p>\n

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the prevalence of food insecurity peaked at\u00a0just under 15% of households<\/a>\u00a0in 2011. Rates then steadily declined each year through 2019, when just over\u00a01 in 10 households<\/a>\u00a0reported experiencing food insecurity.<\/p>\n

But then came 2020.<\/p>\n

Although official statistics have not been released yet, early evidence suggests that\u00a0food insecurity rates hit unprecedented levels<\/a>, affecting perhaps\u00a017 million more<\/a>\u00a0Americans than in 2019.\u00a0Households with children<\/a>\u00a0were struck at\u00a0alarmingly high<\/a>\u00a0rates, exacerbated by the closure of schools and child care facilities. In particular, Black and Hispanic families with children were disproportionately affected.<\/p>\n

\"A
(Chart by The Conversation. Data source: USDA Economic Research Service)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Food Justice, Sovereignty and Apartheid\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

That Black and Hispanic households were hit the hardest by food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic is part of a bigger picture.\u00a0Food insecurity is fundamentally an issue of health equity<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible without facing obstacles like poverty and discrimination. Even in normal times, food insecurity\u00a0disproportionately affects low-income households<\/a>, Black and Hispanic families, female-headed households and families with children.<\/p>\n

Families struggling with food insecurity face not only insufficient food, but also\u00a0insufficient nutritious food<\/a>. Because of this, people who are food-insecure have higher risks of a range of\u00a0diet-related chronic diseases<\/a>\u00a0such as diabetes and hypertension.<\/p>\n

Food insecurity can be exacerbated by living in low-income areas without access to sources of healthy and affordable food. These areas have often been referred to as \u201cfood deserts<\/a>,\u201d although this metaphor is being phased out by\u00a0food justice advocates<\/a>,\u00a0researchers<\/a>, and\u00a0government agencies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another term that has emerged \u2013 \u201cfood swamp<\/a>\u201d \u2013 describes neighborhoods where sources of unhealthy foods outnumber sources of healthy food \u2013 for example, the number of fast-food outlets outnumbers grocery stores.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, several other terms bring civil rights into U.S. urban food activism. \u201cFood justice<\/a>\u201d is a food movement rooted in addressing class and race issues, often through local community food production. \u201cFood sovereignty<\/a>\u201d originates from indigenous and global agrarian communities, and refers to the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.<\/p>\n

Another term, \u201cfood apartheid<\/a>,\u201d even more explicitly identifies structural racism as a root cause of food-related inequalities.<\/p>\n

What these terms \u2013 food sovereignty, food justice and food apartheid \u2013 have in common is that they prod citizens, researchers and policymakers to move beyond issues of geographic food access and \u201chow to feed the poor<\/a>\u201d and instead focus on how food systems can be reformed to address fundamental causes of food insecurity and health inequities.<\/p>\n

A New Era<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration tightened restrictions on\u00a0SNAP benefits<\/a>. Formerly known as food stamps, SNAP is the largest of the federal food programs, providing monthly benefits to supplement the food budget in income-eligible families. Food insecurity was a critical part of policy discussions of SNAP restrictions.<\/p>\n

But the issue of food insecurity has seemingly seeped more broadly into the public consciousness in conversations about racial justice, economic hardship, school reopening, pandemic preparedness and the food supply chain that ramped up in 2020 \u2013 conversations that are continuing in 2021.<\/p>\n

The recent rise in food insecurity has prompted a response that has at times\u00a0overwhelmed food banks and food pantries<\/a>\u00a0and the providers of free meals. But more sustainable solutions, such as\u00a0anti-poverty policies<\/a>, are needed to address the problem\u2019s root causes.<\/p>\n

Food insecurity is not a new problem, but the current challenges come in an era in which more people are aware of the problem. My hope is that the long-overdue public exposure of America\u2019s fault lines can be the catalyst for new efforts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Originally published in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened an already significant problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":169134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2224,2231,259,2235,92],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1902],"class_list":["post-169130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cahnr","category-health-well-being","category-rudd-center","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-hartford"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-11 06:34:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169130"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169137,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169130\/revisions\/169137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/169134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169130"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=169130"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=169130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}