Hunger and Obesity: Understanding a Food Insecurity Paradigm: Workshop Summary

At some point during 2009, more than 17 million households in the United States had difficulty providing enough food for all their members because of a lack of resources. In more than one-third of these households, the food intake of some household members was reduced and normal eating patterns were disrupted due to limited resources. The Workshop on Understanding the Relationship Between Food Insecurity and Obesity was held to explore the biological, economic, psychosocial, and other factors that may influence the relationship between food insecurity, overweight, and obesity in the United States.

Hunger and Obesity examines current concepts and research findings in the field. The report identifies information gaps, proposes alternative approaches to analyzing data, recommends new data that should be collected, and addresses the limitations of the available research.

• Front Matter
• Overview
• 1 Goals of the Workshop
• 2 Setting the Stage for the Coexistence of Food Insecurity and Obesity
• 3 Socioeconomic Disparities: Food Insecurity and Obesity
• 4 Sentinel Populations
• 5 Socioecological Perspectives: The Individual Level
• 6 Socioecological Perspectives: The Family and Household Level
• 7 Socioecological Perspectives: The Environmental Level
• 8 Socioecological Perspectives: The Institutional Level
• 9 Putting the Levels Together
• 10 Research Applications
• 11 Research Gaps from a Disciplinary Perspective
• 12 Research Methods and Measures
• 13 Key Elements, Priorities, and Next Steps
• Appendix A: Workshop Agenda
• Appendix B: Planning Committee Biographical Sketches
• Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches
• Appendix D: Workshop Participants
• Appendix E: Acronyms
• Appendix F: Roundtable Discussions
• Appendix G: Public Comments
• Appendix H: Brief List of Recurring Workshop Discussions