Nutrition & Food Security

By Guadalupe Perez, UC Merced

2022-2023 Student Ambassador Cohort - Center for Planetary Health

June 2, 2023

Photo of vegetable display next to photo of crops

Nutrition and food security will always be an important topic to discuss because of food insecurities and malnutrition which impacts many countries.

The pandemic had an impact on the world, but also on food security. World hunger rose which affected millions of people during mid pandemic which caused food security to be more prevalent. The number started to rise to the point where people were not able to afford healthy food.

Below shows a graph that shows how food security has impacted nutrition throughout the years. The low and lower-middle-income classes have endured most of the global malnutrition.

Map of global malnutrition

Graph showing how food security has impacted nutrition

Recent news shows that inflation has impacted food prices. The affected countries are Africa, North America, Latina America, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia. Food security impacts the world because many countries are low-income in which cannot afford to buy healthy foods which affect their nutrition, especially young children who may not fully develop due to the issue.

Additional Resources:

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-update

https://data.unicef.org/resources/sofi-2022/

References

Nina. (2022, July 6). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 - UNICEF DATA. UNICEF DATA. https://data.unicef.org/resources/sofi-2022/

World Bank Group. (2023). Food Security Update| The Bank’s Response to Rising Food Insecurity. In World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-update