The Experience of being Hungry
Disciplines
Peace and Conflict Studies
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Do food secure and food insecure people experience hunger differently? Physiologically, there is a big discrepancy between hunger in terms of appetite, and hunger in terms of starvation. Regarding the availability of food in developing and industrialized countries, the probability that people in industrialized countries suffer from hunger is far lower than for people in developing countries. Furthermore, social safety nets, mainly established in developed democracies, prevent starvation. Nevertheless, a big part of the population in the United States finds itself in a critical food security situation. The literature on food insecurity approaches hunger largely quantitatively. This article aims to provide a qualitative approach to describe the experience of being hungry from different perspectives. Therefore, interviews were conducted with people who experienced food security and food insecurity. This article analyzes different narratives derived from the interviews, as well as an expert interview on food security, and a content analysis on how being-hungry is addressed in different sources on the internet. The public discussion does not differentiate between being hungry when being food secure and being food insecure. Nor is there consciousness within the population for different stages of being hungry. To increase consciousness for the situation of the real poor, an emotionally charged topic like hunger needs to be addressed.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
RCHSS - Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Dr. Darina Lepadatu
The Experience of being Hungry
Do food secure and food insecure people experience hunger differently? Physiologically, there is a big discrepancy between hunger in terms of appetite, and hunger in terms of starvation. Regarding the availability of food in developing and industrialized countries, the probability that people in industrialized countries suffer from hunger is far lower than for people in developing countries. Furthermore, social safety nets, mainly established in developed democracies, prevent starvation. Nevertheless, a big part of the population in the United States finds itself in a critical food security situation. The literature on food insecurity approaches hunger largely quantitatively. This article aims to provide a qualitative approach to describe the experience of being hungry from different perspectives. Therefore, interviews were conducted with people who experienced food security and food insecurity. This article analyzes different narratives derived from the interviews, as well as an expert interview on food security, and a content analysis on how being-hungry is addressed in different sources on the internet. The public discussion does not differentiate between being hungry when being food secure and being food insecure. Nor is there consciousness within the population for different stages of being hungry. To increase consciousness for the situation of the real poor, an emotionally charged topic like hunger needs to be addressed.