Misselhorn Alison, Hendriks Sheryl L
Institute for Food, Nutrition and Well-being, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.
Institute for Food, Nutrition and Well-being and the Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.
PLoS One. 2017 Aug 22;12(8):e0182399. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182399. eCollection 2017.
Food insecurity is an intractable problem in South Africa. The country has a tradition of evidence-based decision making, grounded in the findings of national surveys. However, the rich insights from sub-national surveys remain a largely untapped resource for understandings of the contextual experience of food insecurity. A web-based search identified 169 sub-national food insecurity studies conducted in the post-apartheid period between 1994 and 2014. The systematic review found that the studies used 27 different measures of food insecurity, confounding the comparative analysis of food insecurity at this level. While social grants have brought a measure of poverty relief at household level, unaffordable diets were the root cause of food insecurity. The increasing consumption of cheaper, more available and preferred 'globalised' foods with high energy content and low nutritional value lead to overweight and obesity alongside child stunting. Unless a comparable set of indicators is used in such surveys, they are not able to provide comparable information on the scope and scale of the problem. Policy makers should be engaging with researchers to learn from these studies, while researchers need to share this wealth of sub-national study findings with government to strengthen food security planning, monitoring, and evaluation at all levels.
粮食不安全是南非一个棘手的问题。该国有着基于全国调查结果进行循证决策的传统。然而，来自地方层面调查的丰富见解在很大程度上仍是未被开发利用的资源，无法用于理解粮食不安全的具体情境体验。通过网络搜索，共找出1994年至2014年种族隔离后时期开展的169项地方层面的粮食不安全研究。系统评价发现，这些研究采用了27种不同的粮食不安全衡量方法，这使得在此层面上对粮食不安全的比较分析变得复杂。虽然社会补助金在家庭层面带来了一定程度的贫困缓解，但难以负担的饮食是粮食不安全的根本原因。廉价、更易获取且更受青睐的“全球化”高能量低营养价值食品的消费不断增加，导致超重和肥胖问题，同时儿童发育迟缓。除非在此类调查中使用一套可比的指标，否则它们无法提供关于该问题范围和规模的可比信息。政策制定者应与研究人员合作，从这些研究中汲取经验，而研究人员则需要与政府分享大量地方层面的研究结果，以加强各级粮食安全规划、监测和评估。
