One in nine young Portuguese adults live in a food insecure household – a concept that describes limited or uncertain access to nutritionally adequate and safe food for daily intake for economic reasons. The result is of a study by the Instituto de Saúde Pública da Universidade do Porto (ISPUP), which was published in the “International Journal of Public Health”.
The research evaluated the prevalence and determinants of food insecurity in a sample of young Portuguese adults (954 individuals), aged 26, belonging to the EPITeen cohort – a longitudinal study that has been evaluating, since 2003, several determinants of health among individuals who were born in 1990.
“We evaluated food insecurity in these young adults in the year 2016, a time marked by the recovery of the economic crisis that the country went through in the previous years and during which it was under austerity measures. We chose this age group because we know that young people nowadays have more precarious jobs and less social protection. We wanted to understand how susceptible they were to food insecurity”, explains Isabel Maia, the first author of the study, coordinated by Ana Cristina Santos.
The researchers found that even during a period of economic recovery, 11% of young adults lived in a food insecure household. For Isabel Maia, “this is a considerable number and it is also in line with the results of studies conducted in other European countries, such as France and Denmark”.
In addition to calculating the prevalence of food insecurity in this population, the study also showed that individuals with lower education and less skilled professions are at a higher risk of food insecurity, regardless of other factors. By analyzing household income, they found that young adults who considered themselves to have a lower income were at greater risk. Additionally, those who already had a family of their own presented a higher risk of food insecurity compared to those still living with their parents.
“This study contributes with evidence to characterize young adults who are at greater risk of food insecurity. We have identified the least educated, those with less qualified professions, those with insufficient incomes and those who already have a family of their own,” she says.
The researchers believe that it is important to create public health measures to support this population to improve their food security so that people will not fail to meet their basic dietary needs due to lack of income.
This area of study is particularly important because food insecurity is also associated with obesity and other non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension.
The article, developed within the scope of the Epidemiology Research Unit (EPIUnit) of ISPUP, is called Household food insecurity and socio-demographic determinants in young adults: findings from a Portuguese population-based sample . The researchers Teresa Monjardino, Raquel Lucas and Elisabete Ramos also participated in the study.
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