Analysis of prevalence of undernourishment as a food security indicator

Abstract

The article researches the main aspects and factors of the prevalence of undernourisment in the world as an indicator of the food security system. The dynamics of the prevalence of malnutrition and the number of people suffering from acute food insecurity were analyzed. The prevalence of undernourishment and the number of people suffering from severely food insecurity have been found to have skyrocketed over the past four years. The factors influencing the prevalence of malnutrition and the increase in the number of hungry people are highlighted, among which both political and economic factors and climatic factors can be distinguished, in particular, unfavorable weather conditions, disasters, wars, financial and economic shocks. However, the biggest reason the world's people suffer from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition is the lack of financial resources to purchase healthy food. In order to analyze the impact of income on the number of hungry people, graphs of the relationship between net national income per capita and the prevalence of undernourishment were determined for each group of countries. According to the graphs and econometric models, it was found that the prevalence of undernourishment decreases as the net national income per capita increases. The only exceptions are countries with an upper middle income level, in which the prevalence of undernourishment is not due to the level of national income, but other factors. Recommendations are given on ways to combat the prevalence of malnutrition as an indicator for assessing the effectiveness of the food security system.