The relationship between food insecurity and dietary outcomes

📖 The Scoop

Little research has been conducted on the association of food insecurity, particularly at the moderate level, and dietary consumption in low- and middle-income countries. This study expands on previous works by considering cross-country comparable measures of food insecurity that are calibrated against the global Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). The FAO Statistics Division has been publishing estimates of the prevalence of food insecurity, based on the FIES, since 2017. The FIES is the first standardized measure, of people's direct experiences of food insecurity, appropriate for application on a global scale. The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity based on the FIES is one of the official SDG indicators (2.1.2). The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between the severity of food insecurity, as measured with the FIES (or an analogous experience-based food insecurity scale calibrated to the global reference scale), and dietary intake using microdata from four middle-income countries from different world regions: Kenya, Mexico, Samoa, and Sudan.

Genre: Technology & Engineering / Food Science / Food Safety & Security (fancy, right?)