Food Insecurity Is not Associated With Lower Energy Intakes

Abstract

We examined the association between food insecurity and total daily energy intakes in American men and women. We estimated the number of daily snacks and meals consumed by individuals in different food security categories. Also, we calculated the energy contribution, energy density, and food group sources of those snacks and meals. Using the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), we examined the Food Security Survey Module (FSSM) and dietary information from the 24-h recall. Differences in energy intakes between groups were not significant. Women who were food insecure without hunger (FIWOH) and food insecure with hunger (FIWH) had significantly fewer meals than food secure (FS) women. The energy contribution of each meal and the total energy contributed from snacking were both significantly greater for FIWOH women than for FS women. The number of meals was significantly lower whereas the daily number of snacking occasions and the total energy from snacking were significantly increased for FIWOH men relative to FS men. FIWOH men consumed snack foods that had significantly lower energy density than those consumed by FS men. Among men and women, the major sources of meal energy were the grain group, the meat, poultry, and fish group, and the sugar, sweets, and beverages group whereas the major source of snacking energy was the sugar, sweets, and beverages group. Total energy intakes were not different for FI individuals; however, their meal and snack behaviors were different. Focusing solely on total energy intake would miss important consequences of food insecurity.

Financial Strain Is Associated with Malnutrition Risk in Community-Dwelling Older Women

“…Rates are consistently higher, however, among low income compared to high income individuals [3, 7, 8]. Malnutrition is generally understood to be a deficiency of both energy and protein, combined with decreased fat-free mass [9], although older adults of low socioeconomic status can be malnourished even if consuming a high energy diet [10, 11], probably because they consume foods with lower nutrient content [10, 12]. Also, there is evidence that food insecure adults, or adults who lack regular access to food, have poorer dietary quality than food secure adults, despite similar caloric intake [11, 13–15].…”

Coping and the biosocial consequences of food insecurity in the 21st century

“…Because food insecurity results in shifts or alterations to one's diet in both high income (Rose, 1999;Tarasuk and Beaton, 1999;Dixon et al, 2000;Lee and Frongillo, 2001;Zizza et al, 2008) and low-income settings (MelgarQuinonez et al, 2006;Hadley et al, 2007;Knueppel et al, 2010) many have explored the potential relationship between food insecurity and measures of undernutrition and overnutrition, including overweight and obesity. The results of this work highlight the variation in the relationship between measures of food insecurity and measures of nutritional wellbeing.…”

Dietary Intake, Behaviors and Psychosocial Factors among Women from Food-Secure and Food-Insecure Households

“…In total, these studies suggest that food insecurity is predictive of a poor diet; 7,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] however, few examined this association among or within racial and ethnic groups. National data showed that poverty-level income was associated with lower diet quality among both White and Black, but not Hispanic, respondents, while…”