FoodInsecurityBriefing May 2016 FINAL

The scale used to measure food insecurity was validated in countries across the world and consisted of asking people eight questions about their ability to get enough food in the past year, consistent with scales already in use in other countries and similar to questions used in the 2003-5 Low Income Diet and Nutrition Survey. [...] 1 While there is not an official government definition of food insecurity used in the UK, this definition is drawn from guidance on measuring food insecurity in the USA and was used for the UK’s Low Income Diet and Nutrition Survey, 2007 foodfoundation.org.uk | May 2016 | Food Insecurity Briefing | 3 To measure food insecurity across over 140 countries, the FAO had the FIES included in the Gallup®. [...] Levels of food insecurity in the UK in 2014 The data show that 10.1% (CI ±2.9%) of people aged 15 or over in the UK were moderately food insecure in 2014. [...] In January 2015, the parliamentary Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: We recommend that the Government collect objective and statistically robust data on the “ scale of household food insecurity, including through the use of questions in the food costs sections of the UK’s Living Costs and Food Survey. [...] These include the annual UK-wide Living Costs and Food Survey, the annual health surveys conducted in each of the 4 UK nations and the biennial Food and You survey commissioned by the Food Standards Agency.