Indicators and Nutritional Outcomes of Household Food Insecurity among a Sample of Rural Malaysian Women

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to determine the indicators and nutritional outcomes of household food insecurity among a sample of poor rural communities in Malaysia. The Radimer/Cornell Hunger and Food Insecurity Instrument was utilized to categorize food secure and insecure households. Demographic, socioeconomic, coping strategies and anthropometric information were collected through in- depth interviews with Malay and Indian women (n=200). More than 50% of the households experienced some degree of food insecurity. In general, the food insecure households were characterized as living below poverty line and had larger household size, more children, school-going children and non-working mothers. For both households, major expenditures were on foods, utilities, child education, loans and transportation with food insecure households spending higher proportion of their incomes (97%) compared to food secure households (84%). While more than 50% of food insecure women were overweight (26%) and obese (30%), the percentages of overweight and obese among food secure women were 30 and 9%, respectively. Similarly, more food insecure women (40%) had at-risk waist circumference (> 88cm) than food secure women (29%). Overweight and abdominal adiposity among the women were associated with a number of independent variables such as women as housewives, women with more children, larger household size and food insecurity. However, after adjusting for factors that are related to body mass index and waist circumference, only food insecurity remained as a significant risk factor for overweigh and at-risk waist circumference. Although more validity tests are required, the findings demonstrated that the Radimer/Cornell Hunger and Food Insecurity Instrument has some validity to be utilized in Malaysian population. Given that obesity is an emerging public health concern in the developing nations, the findings that food insecurity is a risk factor for overweight must be further investigated.