Based on a survey conducted on 800 households between 1986 and 1989.

Managing food security in a predominantly rural economy such as India, requires an understanding not only of how agricultural policies of food supply and incomes but also how households acquire food and cope with insecurity of food. Many economists regard income as the main indicator of welfare, but other planners maintain that food consumption, health and nutrition of household members are also important in defining a household s standard of living. The main concerned of this study is to trace the pathways from economic and social policies to food security and ultimately to nutrition. Contents: Introduction, Review of Literature, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Summary and Conclusions.

Child undernutrition and food security are serious problems facing Pakistan. It is estimated that almost three-quarters of the Pakistani population live below the poverty line of $2 income per day. With household food insecurity as an underlying determinant of undernutrition, our first study's aim was to adapt and validate the global nine-question Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) version 3 for use in Pakistan. We concluded that the HFIAS was reflective of the three domains of food insecurity access (anxiety and uncertainty about the household food supply; inadequate food quality; and insufficient food intake), and could be used by policymakers and researchers to identify and target groups for food insecurity reduction programs. There is little consensus in defining socioeconomic status (SES) and researchers collect a plethora of information to account for SES, but few studies efficiently utilize the information collected. Our 2nd study aim was to demonstrate the usefulness of principal component analysis in identifying useful SES indicators to develop a meaningful SES index in rural, periurban and urban areas of Pakistan. Our index did not load heavily on tangible assets and/or the presence of livestock, even in rural areas, as some studies on health inequalities have shown. Instead, we found the largest variance was explained by the frequency of purchasing basic commodities of oil, sugar, tea and wheat, as well as the health-seeking behavior of children under five and pregnant women. Lastly, with strong evidence supporting the association of dietary diversity and improved nutritional status, we used Pakistan's National Nutrition Survey 2001-2002 to characterize dietary factors associated with anemia in young Pakistani children between 6 and 59 months of age. Our results confirmed that irrespective of age group, a majority of Pakistani children were being fed a monotonous diet. In our final multivariate logistic regression model, children reportedly not consuming egg(s) or whose mother was unable to identify dark green leafy vegetables as a source of dietary iron were twice as likely to be anemic, after adjusting for the child's age.

New evidence this year corroborates the rise in world hunger observed in this report last year, sending a warning that more action is needed if we aspire to end world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. Updated estimates show the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to prevailing levels from almost a decade ago. Although progress continues to be made in reducing child stunting, over 22 percent of children under five years of age are still affected. Other forms of malnutrition are also growing: adult obesity continues to increase in countries irrespective of their income levels, and many countries are coping with multiple forms of malnutrition at the same time – overweight and obesity, as well as anaemia in women, and child stunting and wasting.