II-f. Food and Nutrition Security
Words like hunger and starvation have strong emotional impact, but are rarely used as technical terms by specialists in the field. Thus, there are no measures and no published data on hunger or starvation as such. As indicated earlier, the key term for most analysts is malnutrition, but here too it is generally necessary to specify the type of malnutrition. As indicated earlier, in Subsection II-a. Malnutrition, in the absence of other specifications it is assumed that the concern is with protein-energy malnutrition.
Food security has been defined hundred of different ways, but after a great deal of work on the question it is now widely accepted that food security should be defined as access of all people to the food needed for a healthy life at all times (Maxwell and Frankenberger; FAO/WHO). A post-modern perspective offered by one of the key analysts now proposes to unpack the convergence on this understanding that had been achieved with such struggle (Maxwell, 1996). The issue remains unsettled, perhaps usefully so.
There is now increasing attention to the concept of nutrition security. This term has been defined as the "appropriate quantity and combination of inputs such as food, nutrition an health services, and caretaker’s time needed to ensure an active and healthy life (Haddad 1994)."
Food security and nutrition security are different. To illustrate, the FAO's Sixth World Food Survey showed that while food inadequacy is more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa than in South Asia, the incidence of malnutrition based on anthropometric measures is higher in South Asia. They suggest that the discrepancy is largely due to differences in disease patterns. Most life-threatening malnutrition occurs among children, but children do not require very large amounts of food. There can be widespread malnutrition in a population even while food security measures indicate the food situation is relatively good. Millions of children worldwide die each year as a result of diarrhea, for example, but this has little to do with the level of food supply in their communities or even in their households.
We can make sense of this by referring back to Figure II-1, and recalling that nutrition status, as an outcome, results not only from the quality of food but also from the qualities of care and health services, as inputs. Food status is one component of nutrition status. The other two major components are care and health services. Thus, we can say that nutrition status depends on food status, care status, and health status.
Whether speaking of food or nutrition, the literature often fails to make a clear distinction between status and security. We suggest the following formulation.
Security means freedom from fear of harm. Thus, the difference between, say, nutrition status and nutrition security is that status refers to current conditions, while security refers to anticipated conditions. Just as we can say that nutrition status depends on food status, care status, and health status, we can also say that nutrition security depends on food security, care security, and health security.
The difference between these two formulations may seem slight, but the significance is that the security concept takes account of the institutional measures that come into play when the status is disturbed. To illustrate, you are interested not only in whether your house is currently on fire, but also in whether there are adequate institutional arrangements in place to put out a fire if and when one should occur. Or, to offer a different illustration, if you have washed up on a deserted island and just eaten your last can of beans, your nutrition status may be alright, but your nutrition security is bleak.
Continue to II-g. Varieties of Government Action
Subsection II-f last updated on September 05, 1999