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  • Food security
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What does this mean?

In Kids Stats food security refers to children and young people who have an adequate amount of nutritionally-appropriate and personally-acceptable food.

Why is it important?

Children and young people's physical and psychological health is influenced by access to adequate food.

Without secure access to adequate food, children and young people may become malnourished. Children who are without food periodically can experience cyclical weight gain and weight loss, and obesity [1].

Indicator

Currently, there is no routine measure of food security collected in NSW.

The indicator used in Kids Stats to monitor food security is obtained from the NSW Child Health Survey 2001 [2]. The indicator is:

The number of children aged 0 to 12 years reported by their parent or carer as running out of food in the last 12 months.

This indicator was derived from a question asked in the NSW Child Health Survey 2001.

Main findings

• In 2001, 6.0% of parents or carers said they had run out of food and could not afford to buy more at least once in the last 12 months
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents or carers were almost three times as likely as non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents to have run out of food in the last 12 months (15.6% compared with 5.6%)
• Mothers with below tertiary level education were three times more likely than those with tertiary education to have run out of food in the last 12 months (7.4% compared with 2.4%)

Notes:

[1] Parnell, W.R., Reid, J., Wilson, N.C., McKenzie, J., Russel, D.G. (2001). Food security: Is New Zealand a land of plenty? New Zealand Medical Journal, 114,141-145.
[2] Quaine, J., Eyeson-Annan, M., Baker, D., O’Sullivan, B., Williamson, M., & Jorm L. (2003). Report on the Development of the Child Health Survey. NSW Public Health Bulletin, 14 (S-1).

For details of the references and to find out more about the data follow the link to glossary and further information.