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"Nutritional Vulnerability and Food Insecurity among Women
in Families Using Food Banks".

        - A report on a Health Canada-funded study, prepared
by Valerie Tarasuk, George Beaton, Jennifer Geduld and
Shelley Hilditch, Department of Nutritional Scineces,
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto.  March, 1998.


        EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Over the past two decades, the demand for charitable food
assistance has steadily grown, and a massive ad hoc system
of food banks has become established in Canada.  Although
initially construed as temporary, emergency relief
operations, food banks now appear to have become a fixture
of Canadian society.  This study was undertaken to assess
the food insecurity and nutritional vulnerability of one
subgroup of food bank users, women living with children.
The results of interviews with a sample of 153 women
recruited from emergency food relief programs in
Metropolitan Toronto reveal a disturbing picture of severe
poverty, food scarcity and deprivation.

The vast majority of women in this study were dependent on
social assistance, and 90% reported household incomes which
were less than two-thirds of the Statistics Canada
Low-Income Cut-Offs.  Sixty-five percent of the sample were
lone parents.  Many were socially isolated, and many
described themselves as being in poor health. In addition,
most of the women in this study had body weights outside the
range that would be considered healthy.

Although the extent of reported food deprivation varied
widely among households, 93.5% reported some degree of food
insecurity over the past 12 months.   Many reported
experiences of food deprivation (hunger) among adults, and
26.8% of women also reported that their children had endured
some food deprivation in the past year.  Importantly, the
food deprivation documented in this study occurred in spite
of the charitable food assistance women were able to obtain
from food banks, and in spite of the host of other
strategies they employed to augment scarce household
resources.  In their efforts to avoid or alleviate problems
of food scarcity, the women resorted to a wide range of
strategies, including delaying payment of bills, giving up
telephone and other services, and selling possessions, as
well as seeking charitable food assistance.  Where possible,
they also sought assistance from family and friends.

Women in households with severe food problems appear to be
at particular risk for nutrient inadequacies.  An assessment
of women's current dietary intakes revealed prevalences of
inadequacy of 38% for iron, 31% for magnesium, 28% for
vitamin A, 23% for folate, 15% for protein, and 12% for
zinc.  Calcium intake levels were also well below
recommended levels for most women.  Although children's
dietary intakes were not assessed, it is difficult to
imagine that those in households characterized by severe
food insecurity are not also experiencing heightened
nutritional vulnerability. While short-term consumption of
an inadequate diet is unlikely to have long-term health
consequences, there is little evidence that the hardships of
households in this study are temporary.

The documentation of extensive food insecurity among
households reliant on social assistance programs illustrates
 the serious inadequacy of current social assistance benefit
levels and the inability of an ad hoc, community-based
system of charitable food assistance to effectively
compensate for them.  There is an urgent need for social
assistance benefits to be set at levels which ensure that
families are capable of meeting their essential needs.