John A.

Duggins
Connections
Research Paper
Dr. Koch

Comparing Household Food Insecurity in America with

Household Food Insecurity in Brazil and Guatemala
Food insecurity exists wherever the access to obtain healthy and safe
foods is limited or uncertain (Coleman-Jensen 2010). Using this definition I
will compare the levels of food insecurity in an established country, such as
the United States, a country that is rising to the top economically, such as
Brazil, and a country that is very low economically and not going anywhere,
such as Guatemala. While doing this I will be answering the question, How
Does the Food Insecurity in the United States Compare to the Food Insecurity
in Countries like Brazil and Guatemala?
In the United States compared to other countries most households
have a dependable access to food that is needed to live a healthy life,
meaning most households are food secure (Coleman-Jensen, Nord, Andrews,
Carlson 2011). That being said, First World hunger has to be observed
different than Third World hunger because it is not going to be as obvious.
There are three levels to food insecurity in a first world situation. The first
level is food insecure, but no hunger, meaning that there is more of a food
anxiety than a shortage of food. The people in this situation are not
necessarily going hungry but there is a worry that they might not be able to
afford the needed food. When this happens, usually starting with the woman
of the family, the food consumption and the quality of the diets of family
members start to decline, because the people buying the food are worried

John A. Duggins
Connections
Research Paper
Dr. Koch

they will not be able to afford the healthier food that is more expensive
therfore they buy the cheaper food that is filled with chemicals and other
unhealthy substances (Carlson, Andrews, Bickel 1999). An issue with this first
level of food insecurity is on the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is
used to determine how many households are food insecure in the country.
These people would be categorized as marginally secure, and marginally
secure households are categorized as food secure. Being categorized as
food secure, these people would not be able to get as much help as they
need and they can experience a poorer quality of life than a household
categorized as food insecure (Coleman-Jensen 2010). The second level is
food insecure with moderate hunger. This means that due to a lack of
resources to obtain an adequate supply of food, one or more members of the
household have to reduce their intake of food. This situation of reducing the
food intake usually happens in households with children where the parents
will not eat a meal so their children can eat. These households would be
categorized as food insecure under the Current Population Survey. The third
level is food insecure with severe hunger. Being categorized as having severe
hunger means that the household has had a severe reduction in the food
intake for both the adult and the child, i.e. going a whole day without having
any food to eat (Carlson, Andrews, Bickel 1999).
1995 was the first year that nationally representative data was
collected through the Current Population Survey in United States. Looking at

John A. Duggins
Connections
Research Paper
Dr. Koch

the data, in 1995 11.9% of households were food insecure which improved to
11.1% in 2007 (Coleman-Jensen 2010). When the great recession hit near
the end of 2007 a lot of families that had just achieved food security were
pushed back into the horrors of the food insecurity they had just escaped. In
2010 14.5% of households, or 17.2 million households, were food insecure.
Of the 14.5% of households, 9.8% had children that were food insecure
meaning the parents did not have adequate resources to make sure the
children in the home received the needed nutrition on a daily basis. 59% of
the 14.5% of food insecure households are on at least one of the three
largest federal food and nutrition assistance programs. This data is really
frightening to look at because we normally do not think of the United States
having an issue like food insecurity, but it is a reality though it is not as
prevalent as other countries (Coleman-Jensen, Nord, Andrews, Carlson 2011).
In Brazil food insecurity is measured similar to how we measure food
insecurity in the Unites States. The first level is categorized as light food
insecurity, the second level is categorized as mild or moderate food
insecurity, and the third level is severe food insecurity. In Brazil 40.9% of the
population have some form of food insecurity, but only 14.4% have moderate
or severe food insecurity present in the household. This means that 26.5% of
Brazils population falls under the light food insecurity category, which
means they have food anxiety for the majority of the year (VelasquezMelendez, Schlussel, Brito, Silva, Lopez-Filho, Kac 2011). Stepping away from

John A. Duggins
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Research Paper
Dr. Koch

the data and looking at the long term picture, Brazil has policies that have
been set in place by the government to fix this issue of food security, and
this is why I chose Brazil as my improving country. Brazil is a country that
has a high income disparity among the rich and the poor, but there many
more poor people in Brazil than rich people. Because of the income disparity
and poverty problem, Brazil developed a program in 2003 which was called
The Fome Hunger Program or The Zero Hunger Program. The Fome
Hunger Program made food security a priority of the federal governments
social policy. The only problem with the program in the beginning was the
people and politicians that were initially mobilized and leading this
movement did not have a lot of experience and the program was failing.
Since the first year in 2003 the program has grown and is now referred to a
strategy not a program. As the strategy began growing there were policies
and programs that were added to the strategy. These policies and programs
are aimed at decreasing the income disparity between the rich and the poor
by bringing families out of poverty. In theory, when these families are
brought out of poverty they will then be food secure, or more food secure
than they were. There are steps, or goals, to this strategy which are to create
access to food, strengthen family agriculture, generate income, and get
society involved in helping with the strategy through partner promotion and
civil society mobilization. In the three years after year number one of this
strategy being in place, 5 million people were brought out of poverty. This

John A. Duggins
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Research Paper
Dr. Koch

Brazilian policy should be a model for any semi-periphery country looking to

join the core (Rocha 2009).
Countries such as Guatemala on the other hand should be countries
that core and semi-periphery countries look to help. Guatemalas food
insecurity problem is almost beyond repair. Chronic malnutrition in
Guatemala ranks third worst in the world with 70% of indigenous children
suffering from chronic malnutrition due to food insecurity. Guatemala also
ranks third worst in the world in income disparity, which is not just monetary,
Guatemala land is also involved. 2% of Guatemalas population own 70% to
75% of the agriculture land and 5.6% of the population own 50% of
Guatemalas total income. Due to these circumstances widespread food
insecurity is not a question of the availability of food, because the land could
feed well more than the population, it is more a question of the distribution
of resources and the access to the food. Poor access to land, water, health
services, schools, and appropriate farm technology keeps the rural civilian of
Guatemala deep in poverty with little hope of escaping. This high level of
income disparity and poverty lead to high levels of discrimination, violence,
and child labor. Guatemala is trying to improve the situation to the best of
their ability with the Title II program. The Title II program consists of four
non-profit organizations that work with over 105,000 participating food
insecure households in over 1,600 communities. The goal of these
organizations is not just to hand out donated food commodities but also to

John A. Duggins
Connections
Research Paper
Dr. Koch

educate. Guatemala cannot better the way of life for their citizens if their
citizens do not know how to properly live a better life. These organizations
will teach them health, hygiene, proper nutrition for the kids, ways to ration
the food etc. The issue with this program at the moment is there are not
enough funds to do some of the things that are needed to keep it running
and to properly help the families. The program is also attempting to
strengthen the role of the local governments in the communities and
municipal institutions in the communities to support the food security in their
population and help their citizens more than they do. Guatemala needs help.
I cannot tell what the best way to help them would be; I just know they need
help (Schnell, McNulty, Bentley 2006).
In conclusion, after comparing the food insecurity in the United States
with the food security in countries like Brazil and Guatemala I found that
there is a prevalence of food insecurity in the United States, but we are
significantly better off compared to the food insecurity in other countries. I
found that Brazil has found a strategy with a firm set of policies and
programs that are working toward decreasing the poverty and income
disparity, which they are hoping will decrease the food insecurity as well, and
it is actually working. I also found that Guatemala is in a very bad situation
and the Title II program that has been started with non-profit organizations is
not even working because there is not enough funding. After looking through
all these findings I will predict that the United States will stay around the

John A. Duggins
Connections
Research Paper
Dr. Koch

same percentage of households that are food insecure due to the fact that
most of the households in the country are food secure. I will also predict that
Brazil will keep reducing their income disparity and their poverty by leaps
and bounds. Guatemala is in a hole so deep that I cannot begin to predict
what will happen to their situation in the future. Hopefully they will get help.

Bibliography
Carlson, Steven, Margaret Andrews, and Gary Bickel. 1999. Measuring Food
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Coleman-Jensen, Alisha, Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews, and Steven Carlson. 2011.
Household Food Security In the United States in 2010. USDA-ERS Economic
Research Report 125. Retrieved 2015 (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?
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Coleman-Jensen, Alisha Judith. 2009. U.S. Food Insecurity Status: Toward a Refined
Definition. Social Indicators Research 95(2):21530. Retrieved 2015
(www.jstor.org).
Rocha, Cecilia. 2008. Developments In National Policies for Food and Nutrition
Security in Brazil. Development Policy Review 27(1):5166. Retrieved 2015
(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7679.2009.00435.x/epdf).

John A. Duggins
Connections
Research Paper
Dr. Koch
Schnell, Charles, Judiann McNulty, and Jefiery Bender. 2006. Food Security In
Guatemala: Evaluation of the Title II. TANGO International. Retrieved 2015
(http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdact247.pdf).
Velasquez-Melendez, G. et al. 2011. Mild But Not Light or Severe Food Insecurity Is
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