The Impact of Food Insecurity on Women and Children

Food insecurity exists whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods is limited or uncertain. Some of the causes of food insecurity identified in this paper include poor access to productive inputs, social and economic inequalities, women’s resilience to climate change, disasters and emergency situations. The discussion of food insecurity and in quantification of the number of food insecure globally is the lack of a standardized measure relevant to all settings and cultures. The effects of food insecurity can be seen in nutrient deficiency, weight loss and some risky coping strategies adopted by women, some households adopt the ‘no breakfast, but launch and dinner’ approach, while others skip one or more mealtimes in a day to maximally utilize the available food resources. The corresponding effects of these measures can translate to food insecure households where poor health and diseases are common. For children, there are bound to cognitive effects, where children perform poorly academically. Food insecurity is an impending threat to human survival and mitigates the achievement of the sustainable development goal on zero hunger, it is therefore imperative that every effort must be put in gear to forestall further occurrence of food insecurity affecting most especially women and children. Intervention programs of the Government should be focused more on women and children in emergency-related food security measures. The emphasis on agriculture should be pursued by governments at the various levels to enhance food production and processing