Coping mechanisms of food insecure households : 7th national nutrition survey, Philippines, 2008 / Jocelyn A. Juguan, Maria Belina M. Nueva España, Ma. Lynell M. Valleabella

Background: Food insecure individuals go through experience of skipping or missing a meal(s) and not eating the whole day because there is no food no money to buy food. The experiences expose children to risks of undernutrition and its negative effects. Understanding how households cope when food insecurity is imminent provides program managers groundwork to help implement food insecurity reduction programs or strategies. Objectives. This study aimed to describe the coping mechanisms of food insecure households and relate these to child-level food insecurity. Methods. The 2008 Food Insecurity Survey was undertaken as part of the 7th National Nutrition Survey (NNS) by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST). Two thousand two hundred ninety one (2,291) food insecure households identified using the Radimer-Cornell hunger and food insecurity tool, were asked questions on coping mechanisms, through face-face interview. Results. The proportion of food insecure adults was higher than children. The food insecure households adopted various mechanisms to cope and the most common behaviors were borrowing money from relatives (71.8%), purchasing food on credit (67.8%), borrowing food from neighbor, relatives and friends (56.1%), reducing portion sizes of the meal (51.3%), restricting consumption of adults (49.8%) and shifting to less expensive staples like root-crops, corn and others (60.5%, 57.6% and 62.9%, respectively). Non-food strategies included migration to other places in search of higher paying jobs (20%) and letting children skip school (15.2%). The different household coping mechanisms were associated with varying odds or child food insecurity. The odds were low with money- and food-seeking behaviors than behaviors that focused on reducing meals of portion sizes of food, while there was nearly equal likelihood of having a food insecure child in households that sought migration to a city or urban area for work vs. households that did not. Recommendations. Households who are at risk to food insecurity should be provided opportunities to adopt money-seeking or food-seeking behaviors to reduce the odds of having a food insecure child. This should include increasing access to safety nets such as participation in cooperatives were they can get loans at lower interest rates without collaterals, and existing programs like "Food for Work," Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), Food-for-school, food discount schemes such as the "Tindahan Natin", and "Bigasan ng Bayan" and other programs like the food- and nutrient- based supplementation.

HNCA