Food Insecurity. What is it?
You may never realise that there is such a thing as food insecurity because of where you live, where you grew up or how you live now, but there is an increase in food security today which is eye-opening.
There are 3 parts for food security:
1. There is inadequate access to food, inadequate supply and the inappropriate use of food (e.g., inappropriate preparation of food).
2. Particular groups in Australia are more susceptible to food insecurity. These include those who are unemployed people, single-parent families, low-income earners, rental households, culturally diverse and indigenous groups and young people.
3. The main reasons people experience food insecurity is because of lack of financial and other resources, lack of nutritional food at affordable prices, lack of affordable food because of where they live, lack of knowledge about food and what a nutritious diet is and lack of motivation to eat well.
This is a multifaceted issue and there are people working on this problem such as Sandy Murray in this video. Sandy’s research will focus on Tasmania and she is looking at how to decrease food insecurity in this area.
References
Burns, C. (2004). A review of the literature describing the link between poverty, food insecurity and obesity with specific reference to Australia. Melbourne: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation.
Council of Australian Governments. (2009). National strategy for food security in remote Indigenous communities, Canberra: COAG.