For many, it’s a struggle to put food on the table

For many Canadians, the recent holiday season did not include a bountiful feast. That’s because more than four million people, including 1.15 million children, experience some level of food insecurity.

Food insecurity, also known as “food poverty,” can cause significant anxiety over diminishing household food supplies and result in individuals modifying their eating patterns — adults skipping meals so children can eat or sacrificing quality food choices for cheaper, less healthy options, for example. Food insecurity also often results in physical hunger pangs, fatigue and lack of concentration and productivity at school, work or play.

Then there are the social impacts of food insecurity, such as not being able to invite friends and family to dinner or being unable to afford to meet people for coffee.

Here are five things Canadians need to know about food insecurity:

1. Food insecurity significantly affects health.

Evidence shows that among children, food insecurity is associated with poorer physical and mental-health outcomes, including the development of a variety of longterm chronic health conditions such as asthma and depression.

For adults, research shows that food insecurity is independently associated with increased nutritional vulnerability, poor self-rated health, poor mental, physical and oral health and multiple chronic health conditions including diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and depression.

2. Household food insecurity is a strong predictor of health-care utilization and costs.

A study in Ontario found that among adults, total health-care costs — including in-patient hospital care, emergency department visits, physician services, same-day surgeries and homecare services — increase significantly with the level of household food insecurity.

Compared with adults in food-secure households, annual healthcare costs were, on average 16 per cent (or $235) higher for adults in households with marginal food insecurity, 32 per cent (or $455) higher among those with moderate food insecurity and 76 per cent (or $1,092) higher among those with severe food insecurity.

3. Food-bank use is a poor indicator of food insecurity.

Food Banks Canada recently estimated food-bank use for a 12-month period at 1.7 million people, yet the number of food-insecure individuals living in Canada is more than double this estimate. The main reason for this discrepancy is that most people struggling to afford the food they need do not turn to charities for help. The evidence suggests that using food banks is a last resort.

4. An adequate and secure level of household income is strongly linked to food security.

It is perhaps surprising, but households reliant on wages and salaries make up the majority of food-insecure households in Canada at 62 per cent. Households whose main source of income was either pensions or dividends and interest had the lowest rate of food insecurity in 2012 at seven per cent — compared with 11 per cent for people in the workforce and 70 per cent for people on social assistance (i.e., welfare and disability support programs).

5. Relatively modest increases in income have been found to lessen food insecurity among low-income families.

Studies have shown that improved incomes and changes in employment can reduce food insecurity. An example of this can be found in Newfoundland and Labrador, where evidence shows that from 2007 to 2012 the rate of food insecurity among households living on social assistance in this province fell from a staggering 60 per cent to 34 per cent. During this time, the provincial government made changes to improve the circumstances of people living on social assistance.

Let’s not let another year go by without addressing food insecurity. In a country as rich as ours, there’s no reason anyone should go hungry.

Carolyn Shimmin is a knowledge translation co-ordinator with evidencenetwork.ca. Valerie Tarasuk is principal investigator of PROOF, a program funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to identify policy interventions to reduce food insecurity in Canada.