Advancing Knowledge of How and Why Food Insecurity Is Associated with Poor Well-Being in Families and Individuals across the Life Course

Abstract

Food security was defined 30 years ago in the United States as “access to enough food for an active, healthy life. It includes at a minimum (a) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods and (b) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (e.g., without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).”1 The converse, food insecurity, “exists whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways is limited or uncertain.”1 Even as a high-income country, 11.8% of US households in 2017 experienced food insecurity at some time during the previous 12 months, with a higher prevalence for households with children (15.7%), children under age 6 years (16.4%), children headed by a single woman (30.3%) or a single man (19.7%), women living alone (13.9%), men living alone (13.4%), black non-Hispanics heads (21.8%) and Hispanics heads (18.0%), and incomes below 185% of the federal poverty line (30.8%).