Key terms to consider and keep an eye out for during the June case studies.
Income, poverty, income deficit, ratio of income to poverty, poverty thresholds, access and affordability, hunger, food security, food quality, food desert, food equity, insufficiency, hunger, foodways, health equity, quality of health, well-being, nutrition, malnutrition, nutrition equity, health disparities, food distribution, famine, Body Mass Index, and many more.
What is Hunger?
Hunger is an individual-level physiological condition that may result from food insecurity.
Hunger is a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged,
involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness or pain that goes beyond
the usual uneasy sensation.
What is Food Security?
Access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security
includes at a minimum (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods,
and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that
is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing or other coping
strategies).
What is Poverty?
It’s difficult to talk about hunger and food insecurity without talking about poverty.
Poverty is often defined as the state or condition of not being able to pay for basic needs.
The way we measure poverty was developed in the 1960s during the Johnson
administration and has changed very little since then. The Census Bureau uses a set of
money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is
in poverty. If a family’s total income is less than the threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered to be in poverty. A simplified version of these thresholds,
called poverty guidelines, is used to determine eligibility for federal programs that provide
food and other assistance.
Activity from The Hunger 101 Curriculum from the Atlanta Community Food Bank.