A national environmental scan of strategies for influencing policy to build food security

Several of the key informants discussed the importance of framing food security as a health issue, as a way to both increase support for the issue and to make a necessary connection between health and social environments. [...] Key Challenges Several key challenges were identified that those attempting to influence policy to build food security need to think about in the process of attempting to influence policy: “It can be a bit of a hodgepodge” The complexity of concept of food security appears to present a significant challenge to those working to address the problems. [...] Furthermore, the uncertainty regarding the genetic modification of foods and the use of hormones, pesticides, excessive fortification, and so on, may threaten the safety of food and pose a general threat to food security11. [...] In addition, current measures of food insecurity only give us estimates of income related food insecurity and ignore other aspects of the phenomenon of food insecurity related to the food system. [...] Impact of Food Insecurity There is little research on the direct health impact of food insecurity, and it is difficult to entangle this from the impact of the other determinants of health, most notably poverty.