Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / Pima County, Arizona has a high rate of overall and childhood food insecurity (15.8% and 26.1% respectively). At the same time attitudes and interests in School Garden Programs have led to an increase in programs throughout the county. This research considers the following question: What role do school gardens play in alleviating food insecurity in Pima County? How can a School Garden Program be designed to best attend to food access, and how can it be applied specifically at Acacia Elementary School? Three school garden programs at three different schools were examined based on academic standing of the school, food security status of students and families, and garden programs related to food access. Observations of school garden programs and discussions with school faculty and teachers showed that there were two potential effects of the programs: Direct or Indirect Effects. Direct effects include produce that is directly donated or sold (affordably) to students and families. Indirect effects of school gardens provide skills, resources, confidence to practice gardening, cooking, or raising chickens at home. Indirect effects proved to be more significant than direct effects. Themes of school garden programs that address food access in this way included (1) Community Partnerships, (2) Extra-Curricular Garden Programs, (3) Cooking Education and Cultural Celebration, and (4) School and District Commitment. The potential of school gardens to alleviate food insecurity was directly applied to the new implementation of a school garden at Acacia Elementary School, a Title 1 school located in a rural food desert. The “ripple effect” food access garden programs cause can create a powerful force in communities living in urban or rural food desert and living with extreme food insecurity.

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / The paper revolves around the intersection of food waste and food insecurity within the built environment. A sample of grocery stores were asked to explain their policies regarding food waste, specifically how they divided this waste stream between food recovery and composting. It was determined in the end that the potential to grow composting as a waste management practice is far greater than the potential to expand food recovery, for all the participating grocery stores could not donate more food than they had historically.

Food banks are potent symbols of the prevalence of poverty and food insecurity in affluent countries, yet they have received very little academic attention in New Zealand. Previous food bank research in this country has mainly been instigated by the voluntary welfare sector and has focused on client characteristics and patterns of use. This study expands on these concepts in the local context from a socio-spatial perspective, and examines food banks from both a service provision and service user perspective. This study aims to: document the growth of the food bank industry and determine its role within the broader voluntary welfare sector; determine patterns and trends in usage; examine client characteristics, neighbourhoods and reasons for use; and discuss the implications of food bank use and how dependency on food banks may be reduced. This study examines non-identifiable socio-demographic and address data obtained for food bank clients (n=1695) from a large Christchurch social service agency for 2005. Data from a second large Christchurch social service agency is used to illustrate certain spatial and temporal trends. Additional interviews and questionnaires are conducted with staff and volunteers in the local food bank industry, and with the clients themselves. Results show that food bank use appears not to have decreased in recent years. Maori, sole parents/sole caregivers and beneficiaries are over-represented amongst food bank clients, while there is an apparent under-use of the food bank by other key groups. Poverty and food insecurity appears to be dispersed in Christchurch and is not confined to the most deprived neighbourhoods. A range of factors contributes to food insecurity and food bank use, with the main reasons relating to lack of income, household bills and unaffordable housing. Changes in macro social and economic policy, rather than increased client education, will contribute to a decrease in the need for food banks.

Food banks are potent symbols of the prevalence of poverty and food insecurity in affluent countries, yet they have received very little academic attention in New Zealand. Previous food bank research in this country has mainly been instigated by the voluntary welfare sector and has focused on client characteristics and patterns of use. This study expands on these concepts in the local context from a socio-spatial perspective, and examines food banks from both a service provision and service user perspective. This study aims to: document the growth of the food bank industry and determine its role within the broader voluntary welfare sector; determine patterns and trends in usage; examine client characteristics, neighbourhoods and reasons for use; and discuss the implications of food bank use and how dependency on food banks may be reduced. This study examines non-identifiable socio-demographic and address data obtained for food bank clients (n=1695) from a large Christchurch social service agency for 2005. Data from a second large Christchurch social service agency is used to illustrate certain spatial and temporal trends. Additional interviews and questionnaires are conducted with staff and volunteers in the local food bank industry, and with the clients themselves. Results show that food bank use appears not to have decreased in recent years. Maori, sole parents/sole caregivers and beneficiaries are over-represented amongst food bank clients, while there is an apparent under-use of the food bank by other key groups. Poverty and food insecurity appears to be dispersed in Christchurch and is not confined to the most deprived neighbourhoods. A range of factors contributes to food insecurity and food bank use, with the main reasons relating to lack of income, household bills and unaffordable housing. Changes in macro social and economic policy, rather than increased client education, will contribute to a decrease in the need for food banks.

Background: When children experience food insecurity, in addition to poverty, their resultant inadequate food intake and disease often leads to the development of proteinenergy malnutrition and ultimately to death. In South Africa, where three out of every four children live in poverty, food insecurity and its multiple negative effects are consequently among the most urgent social issues affecting households and their children. Since household food insecurity is thought to be associated with increased child mortality, it is important to study any such associations amongst South African children to determine additional risk factors for child mortality. Objectives: The main objective of this study was to establish the relationship between household food security and mortality in children under the age of five years in the Agincourt field site, Limpopo Province, in 2004. Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study of secondary data obtained from the 2004 census questionnaire and food security module of the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System in rural Limpopo Province was conducted, involving a total of 7,790 black children under the age of five years. Certain exposure variables were selected for use as indicators of food security and these were analysed with respect to child mortality using univariate and multivariate logistic regression. Results: Based on the outcome indicators of food consumption, 37% of the study population were found to have experienced household food insecurity in 2004, reporting insufficient food for the entire household in the previous month and year. The limited dietary diversity and insufficient quantities of food experienced by the majority of the population were supplemented by the local growth of food crops and the gathering of food from the bush. Of the 79 children (1%) under the age of five years who died in 2004, the majority (24%) died of HIV-related diseases, in addition to deaths caused by diarrhoea, respiratory infections, and malnutrition. Child mortality was found to be associated with the reporting of “unknown” for several indicators of food security. Additionally, expecting the food availability of the household in the coming year to be less than that of the current year (that is, the prediction of future household food insecurity) was significantly associated with an increased risk of under-five child mortality compared to the expectation of the same amount of food the following year (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 2.0), and with a greatly increased risk of mortality compared to the prediction of more food (future household food security) (adjusted OR 4.4). The latter association was age-specific to infants under the age of one year (adjusted OR 5.6) and cause-specific to HIV deaths (adjusted OR 5.9). Conclusions: Following a significant trend in this study in the rural north-east of South Africa, future household food security was inversely related to, and hence protective over, childhood mortality in 2004, even after controlling for confounding factors. Further research on the associations between household food security and under-five child mortality, conducted following the development of a standard nation-wide food security measurement tool specific to South African household conditions, would confirm household food insecurity as a significant risk factor for under-five child mortality and, consequently, as a target for future policies in the reduction of child mortality in this country.

The food vs. fuel debate has heated up since the 2008 global food crisis when major crop prices dramatically increased. Heavily subsidized biofuel production was blamed for diverting food crops from food production and diverting resources from food and feed production, triggering a food crisis globally and leading to increases in the world food insecure population. Few studies have quantified the effects of biofuel policies on world food prices and world food insecurity. This study added the Brazil and China's biofuel sectors to an existing global trade CGE model, and applies the measurement of food insecurity as developed by FAO. Alternative scenarios were food insecurity. Results are examined with focus on (1) effects on domestic biofuel productions, (2) change in food commodity productions and trade, (3) change in land use and land rents, and (4) change in regional undernourished populations. Results indicated that biofuel expansion is not cost competitive to traditional fossil fuel. Without any policy incentives, huge expansion of biofuel production is not likely under current technology. The conventional biofuel mandates in U.S., Brazil and China lead to increases in world food insecurity, while the advanced biofuel mandate in U.S. has the opposite effect. Subsidies to biofuels production help to lessen the increase in world food insecurity that is caused by increases in conventional biofuel production. Additionally, the effects from U.S. biofuel policies are smaller but more widespread than the effects from Brazil or China's biofuel policies. Overall, the long term effects of biofuel production expansion on world food insecurity are much smaller than expected.

Magister Artium (Child and Family Studies) - MA(CFS) / Child-headed households (CHHs) are a recent development that has become progressively noticeable not only in South Africa but also internationally. This phenomenon arose as a result of the death of parents or abandonment of children by their primary caregivers. The Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic has taken away the lives particularly of many adults, leaving children orphaned and having to take on the adults’ responsibilities. In the past, relatives or the extended family would take the responsibility of caring and providing for orphaned children but, with current economic hardships, most families are unable to take the extra responsibility. As a result, older siblings become caregivers to their younger siblings. Unfortunately, when parents die, children often lose access to adequate food, social grants, education and health services. Despite the fact that it is the right of all South Africans, including children, to have access to sufficient food, many households, including CHHs, are living in poverty. As a result, they are vulnerable to food insecurity, leading to developmental, social and emotional challenges. The aim of the present study was to explore and describe the experiences, challenges and coping strategies of CHHs with food insecurity in Ingwavuma, from a bio-ecological perspective. Ingwavuma is a small rural town in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. The study makes recommendations for social work projects, education and future research regarding CHHs’ experiences of food insecurity. This is a qualitative study that utilised an explorative-descriptive methodological approach. Purposive sampling was used to select 20 children between the ages of 13 and 18 years old from CHHs in Ingwavuma. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants at their homes in the town.

Achieving food security in its totality continues to be a challenge in developing nationsespecially those in Africa. The root cause of food insecurity in developing countries is theinability of people to gain access to food due to poverty (Pinstrup-Aderesen, 2002). While therest of the world has made significant progress towards poverty alleviation, Africa, inparticular Sub-Saharan Africa continues to lag behind.Karamoja region is not any different from other developing regions battling with foodinsecurity because of poverty and unpredictable rainfall. For quite a long point in time,Karamoja region has suffered prolonged draught due to unpredictable rain failure which hasinflicted a lot of misery to the people by making them food insecure because of little or nofood harvests. In the dawn of climate change, the situation may further deteriorate if urgentsustainable food security strategies are not introduced in Karamoja.The tasks of reverting Karamoja’s food insecurity to the same secure levels of the other partsof the country requires a shift from emergency relief distribution to sustainable selfproduction planning by the people of Karimojong. This research therefore goes out toinvestigate the potential of one sustainable strategy called Permaculture in addressing the foodinsecurity at the household level for the Karamojongs.Permaculture is a practical concept applicable from the balcony to the farm, from the city tothe wilderness. It is a design system for sustainable environments providing food, energy,shelter, material and non-material needs, as well as the social and economic infrastructuresthat support them. Permaculture means thinking carefully about our environment, our use ofresources and how we supply our needs. It aims to create systems that will sustain not onlyour present, but also future generations (PIJ, 1999).The final result of the current paper is that according to the case study, the Karamojongpracticing Permaculture are more food secure than the ordinary Karamojong. It was alsofound that the land in Karamoja is fertile and if sensitization and awareness of this concept iscarried out, Permaculture will help in reverting the current food insecurity in Karamoja in along run.

This paper examines how socioeconomic status and economic insecurity relate to obesity in working-age Canadians between 2000 and 2010. First, I attempt to explain the gender specific gradients in body mass. Second, I test the theory that higher levels of economic insecurity are associated with higher rates of obesity. Data from the Canadian Community Health Survey is used to determine how BMI relates to various measures of income, food insecurity, and stress. My results indicate that low income is associated with higher rates of female obesity and lower rates of male obesity. Economic insecurity measured at the provincial level, such as the employment rate seems to have no significant impact on obesity, which may be due to limitations in the data. Food insecurity is predictive of excess body weight in women, especially mothers.

Abstract Background: Individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) face many challenges in self-management of their current disease state. Nutrition education has been identified as a key component in managing metabolic control in individuals diagnosed with T2D. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a 4-week nutrition intervention on glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and nutrition knowledge by food security status in individuals with T2D who attend the Family Health Centers of Georgia (FHCGA) located in West Atlanta. Methods: Subjects enrolled in the study (n=6) completed a nutrition knowledge survey at the beginning of the intervention and had their HbA1c values extracted from the FHCGA medical record. Subjects then entered a 4-week group nutrition intervention program. The program consisted of four lessons that focused on the basic diet for diabetes, food label reading, grocery store shopping and eating out with diabetes. Subjects took a nutrition knowledge survey after the intervention and were asked to return to have a follow-up blood draw for HbA1c levels. Results: Two out of six subjects completed the entire protocol. The HbA1c for this subject was higher after the nutrition intervention. An additional two subjects completed all of the lessons and the post survey, but did not have a follow-up HbA1c drawn. The mean nutrition knowledge score pre-intervention (72.33 + 5.13) was lower than the mean post-intervention score (78.67 + 4.04) but was not significantly different. When subdivided by food security status, subjects with a higher food security status had a lower baseline HbA1c. Conclusion: Nutrition knowledge scores increased after nutrition education but not significantly. The effect of nutrition education on HbA1c by food security status could not be determined due to low participation. Future studies with a larger sample size and incentives for compliance are needed to investigate how group nutrition education influences metabolic control in food insecure and secure people with T2D.