Food Insecurity: What Are Its Effects, Why, and What Can Policy Do About It?

2021 ◽  
pp. 237273222110322
Author(s):  
Caitlin T. Hines ◽  
Anna J. Markowitz ◽  
Anna D. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Healthy Lifestyle ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Emotional Development ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Sufficient Food

Food insecurity—lack of access to sufficient food for an active and healthy lifestyle—affects more than 10 million children in the United States. Ample research links food insecurity to hampered child physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development and provides insights for policy. After introducing food insecurity and its measurement, this article summarizes what is known about the effects of food insecurity on child development. It then considers how food insecurity harms children and explores both direct pathways through child health and indirect pathways through parenting and parent well-being. Finally, after reviewing existing policy for reducing food insecurity, we provide suggestions for new policy and policy-targeted research.

scholarly journals Food Insecurity in the United States: Identification, Treatment, and Implications

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 772-773
Author(s):  
Rose Ann DiMaria-Ghalili ◽  
Connie Bales ◽  
Julie Locher
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Clinic ◽  
High Risk Population ◽  
Geriatric Syndrome ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Food insecurity is an under-recognized geriatric syndrome that has extensive implications in the overall health and well-being of older adults. Understanding the impact of food insecurity in older adults is a first step in identifying at-risk populations and provides a framework for potential interventions in both hospital and community-based settings. This symposium will provide an overview of current prevalence rates of food insecurity using large population-based datasets. We will present a summary indicator that expands measurement to include the functional and social support limitations (e.g., community disability, social isolation, frailty, and being homebound), which disproportionately impact older adults, and in turn their rate and experience of food insecurity and inadequate food access. We will illustrate using an example of at-risk seniors the association between sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle mass and function, with rates of food security in the United States. The translational aspect of the symposium will then focus on identification of psychosocial and environmental risk factors including food insecurity in older veterans preparing for surgery within the Veterans Affairs Perioperative Optimization of Senior Health clinic. Gaining insights into the importance of food insecurity will lay the foundation for an intervention for food insecurity in the deep south. Our discussant will provide an overview of the implications of these results from a public health standpoint. By highlighting the importance of food insecurity, such data can potentially become a framework to allow policy makers to expand nutritional programs as a line of defense against hunger in this high-risk population.

scholarly journals The Relation Between Household Food Insecurity and Children's Height in Canada and the United States: A Scoping Review

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1126-1137
Author(s):  
Andrée-Anne Fafard St-Germain ◽  
Arjumand Siddiqi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Income ◽  
Household Food Insecurity ◽  
Household Food ◽  
Optimal Linear ◽  
High Risk Populations ◽  
Families With Children

ABSTRACT Household food insecurity is a determinant of health and marker of material deprivation. Although research has shown that food insecurity is associated with numerous adverse health, developmental and nutritional outcomes among children in high-income countries, little is known about its impact on children's height, an important marker of nutritional status and physical development. We reviewed evidence on the relation between experience-based measures of food insecurity and the height of children aged 0–18 y in Canada and the United States. The search, conducted in Embase, Medline, CINAHL, ProQuest, Web of Science, and EconLit from the inception of the databases to October 2017, identified 811 records that were screened for relevance. A total of 8 peer-reviewed studies, 2 from Canada and 6 from the United States, met the inclusion criteria and were summarized. Five studies found no association between food insecurity and children's height. One study found that having taller children in the household predicted more severe food insecurity, whereas 2 studies found that more severe experiences of food insecurity were associated with shorter height among children from ethnic minority populations. These results suggest that household food insecurity may not be associated with height inequalities among children in Canada and the United States, except perhaps in certain high-risk populations. However, the few studies identified for review provide insufficient evidence to determine whether food insecurity is or is not associated with children's height in these countries. Given the importance of optimal linear growth for current and future well-being, it is critical to understand how different modifiable environmental circumstances relate to children's height to help establish priorities for intervention. Families with children are disproportionately affected by food insecurity, and more research explicitly designed to examine the association between household food insecurity and children's height in high-income countries is needed.

Food Insecurity and Public Health

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly Knowles ◽  
Joanna Simmons ◽  
Mariana Chilton
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Child Nutrition ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
Assistance Program ◽  
Nutrition Assistance ◽  
The Right

Food insecurity—lack of access to enough food for an active and healthy life—is a major public health issue, affecting the health and well-being of one in seven people in the United States. Food insecurity is related to economic, social, and political conditions, and is beyond the control of a single household. Structural inequalities and discrimination against people of color, LGBTQ people, immigrants, people with disabilities, and women drives disparities in food insecurity. Major policy interventions include raising wages, improving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, various programs of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization, and the Elder Nutrition Program, but these programs are not sufficient to address food insecurity fully. A human rights approach, which recognizes the right to food and promotes increasing civic participation among people from all sectors, offers new possibilities in addressing food insecurity in the United States.

Household food insecurity and school readiness among preschool-aged children in the USA

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1469-1477
Author(s):  
Dylan B Jackson ◽  
Alexander Testa ◽  
Daniel C Semenza
Keyword(s):  
Food Insecurity ◽  
School Readiness ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Household Food Insecurity ◽  
Social Emotional Development ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Household Food ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Preschool Aged Children

AbstractObjective:The present study examines the association between mild and moderate-to-severe household food insecurity and school readiness among a nationally representative sample of preschool-aged children.Design:Cross-sectional data pertaining to household food availability as well as four domains of school readiness – early learning skills, self-regulation, social-emotional development and physical health & motor development – were employed.Setting:The USA.Participants:15 402 children aged 3–5 years from the 2016–2018 National Survey of Children’s Health.Results:Both mild and moderate-to-severe food insecurity are associated with an increase in needing support or being at-risk in each of the four school readiness domains, particularly Self-Regulation (IRR = 4·31; CI 2·68, 6·95) and Social-Emotional Development (IRR = 3·43; CI 2·16, 5·45). Furthermore, while nearly half of the children in food-secure households are on-track across all four school readiness domains (47·49 %), only one in four children experiencing moderate-to-severe household food insecurity is on-track across all domains (25·26 %).Conclusions:Household food insecurity is associated with reductions in school readiness among preschool-aged children.

scholarly journals The Effects of Absenteeism on Academic and Social-Emotional Outcomes: Lessons for COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 0013189X2199448
Author(s):  
Lucrecia Santibañez ◽  
Cassandra M. Guarino
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Student Outcomes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Emotional Development ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Emotional Outcomes ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Social Emotional Outcomes

In March 2020, most schools in the United States transitioned to distance learning in an effort to contain COVID-19. A significant number of students did not fully engage in remote learning opportunities due to resource or other constraints. An urgent question for schools around the nation is how much did the pandemic impact student academic and social-emotional development. This paper uses administrative panel data from California to approximate the impact of the pandemic by analyzing how absenteeism affects student outcomes. Our results suggest student outcomes generally suffer more from absenteeism in mathematics than in ELA. Negative effects are larger in middle school. Absences negatively affect social-emotional development, particularly in middle school. Our results suggest districts will face imminent needs for student academic and social-emotional support to make-up for losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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