Does measurement define hunger, or does hunger define measurement?

Abstract

Hunger was “discovered” in the US in the 1960s, the 1980s, and again in the 2000s, but definitions and measurement have varied over time, to include physical and biochemical measures, dietary intake, food‐related behaviors, psychological conditions, and physical sensations. In the 1960s, assessment particularly focused on anthropometry and clinical symptoms, generally undertaken by medical professionals. In the 1980s, community groups tracked food pantry and soup kitchen usage and user characteristics, noting the coincidence with food stamp receipt cycles. Several efforts to develop a hunger measure were undertaken.In the mid‐1990s, the US government held a conference to develop a U.S. measure of hunger and related conditions, bringing together previous work. Hunger was subsumed into the broader framework of “food insecurity” as the most severe category of food security, “food insecure with hunger.” In 2004–06 the Committee on National Statistics (of the National Academies) undertook a review of the US food security survey module and the measurement and reporting methods. It recommended that the word “hunger” not be used as a food security category label, because hunger is a physiological condition, not an economic or social condition. Measurement and language are inextricably entwined in the assessment and depiction of hunger in America.