Editing Hunger (section)

==Definition and related terms==
There is one globally recognized approach for defining and measuring hunger generally used by those studying or working to relieve hunger as a social problem. This is the United Nation's [[FAO]] measurement, which is typically referred to as ''chronic undernourishment'' (or in older publications, as 'food deprivation,' 'chronic hunger,' or just plain 'hunger.') For the FAO:
* ''Hunger'' or ''chronic [[undernourishment]]'' exists when "caloric intake is below the minimum dietary energy requirement (MDER). The MDER is the amount of energy needed to perform light activity and to maintain a minimum acceptable weight for attained height."<ref>{{Cite web
|url=http://www.fao.org/docrep/015/i2490e/i2490e02a.pdf
|title=FAO Statistical Yearbook 2012: Part 2 Hunger dimensions
|publisher=[[FAO]]
|date=2012
|access-date=27 December 2018
|archive-date=9 February 2017
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170209084518/http://www.fao.org/docrep/015/i2490e/i2490e02a.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref> The [[Food and Agriculture Organization|FAO]] use different MDER thresholds for different countries, due to variations in climate and cultural factors. Typically a yearly "balance sheet" approach is used, with the minimum dietary energy requirement tallied against the estimated total calories consumed over the year. The FAO definitions differentiate hunger from [[malnutrition]] and food insecurity:<ref name = "BMJ2018">{{cite journal
| author = Patrick Webb, Gunhild Anker Stordalen, Sudhvir Singh, Ramani Wijesinha-Bettoni, Prakash Shetty, Anna Lartey
| title = Hunger and malnutrition in the 21st century
| journal = [[The BMJ]]
| volume = 350
| pages = k2238| year = 2018| doi = 10.1136/bmj.k2238 | pmid = 29898884
| pmc = 5996965
}}</ref><ref name="FAO2018">{{Cite web
|url=http://www.fao.org/3/I9553EN/i9553en.pdf
|title=The state of food security and nutrition in the world (2018)
|publisher=[[FAO]]
|date=11 September 2018
|access-date=27 December 2018
|archive-date=28 December 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181228073337/http://www.fao.org/3/I9553EN/i9553en.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref name = "FAOintro">{{Cite web
|url=http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/al936e/al936e00.pdf
|title=An Introduction to the Basic Concepts of Food Security
|publisher=[[FAO]]
|date=2008
|access-date=27 December 2018
|archive-date=8 August 2017
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170808204526/http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/al936e/al936e00.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
* [[Malnutrition]] results from "[[Deficiency (medicine)|deficiencies]], excesses or imbalances in the consumption of macro- and/or micro-nutrients." In the [[Food and Agriculture Organization|FAO]] definition, all hungry people suffer from malnutrition, but people who are malnourished may not be hungry. They may get sufficient raw [[calorie]]s to avoid hunger but lack essential micronutrients, or they may even consume an excess of raw [[calorie]]s and hence suffer from [[obesity]].<ref name = "FAOintro"/><ref name="FAO2018"/><ref name = "BMJ2018"/>
* [[Food insecurity]] occurs when people are at risk, or worried about, not being able to meet their preferences for food, including in terms of raw [[calorie]]s and nutritional value. In the [[Food and Agriculture Organization|FAO]] definition, all hungry people are food insecure, but not all food-insecure people are hungry (though there is a very strong overlap between hunger and ''severe food insecurity''.). The [[Food and Agriculture Organization|FAO]] have reported that food insecurity quite often results in simultaneous [[stunted growth]] for children, and [[obesity]] for adults. For hunger relief actors operating at the global or regional level, an increasingly commonly used metric for food insecurity is the [[Integrated Food Security Phase Classification|IPC scale]].<ref name = "FAOintro"/><ref name="FAO2018"/><ref name = "BMJ2018"/>
* ''Acute hunger'' is typically used to denote famine like hunger, though the phrase lacks a widely accepted formal definition. In the context of hunger relief, people experiencing 'acute hunger' may also suffer from 'chronic hunger'. The word is used mainly to denote severity, not long-term duration.<ref name = "FAOintro"/><ref name = "FSIN2020April"/><ref name = "BMJ2018"/>
Not all of the organizations in the hunger relief field use the [[Food and Agriculture Organization|FAO]] definition of hunger. Some use a broader definition that overlaps more fully with malnutrition. The alternative definitions do however tend to go beyond the commonly understood meaning of hunger as a painful or uncomfortable motivational condition; the desire for food is something that all humans frequently experience, even the most affluent, and is not in itself a [[social problem]].<ref>{{Citation
 | last1 = Holben | first1 = David, H.
 | title = The Concept and Definition of Hunger and Its Relationship to Food Insecurity
 | work = [[National Academies of Science]]
 | date = 2005
  }}</ref><ref name = "FAOintro"/><ref name="FAO2018"/><ref name = "BMJ2018"/>

Very low food supply can be described as "food insecure with hunger." A change in description was made in 2006 at the recommendation of the Committee on National Statistics ([[National Research Council (United States)|National Research Council]], 2006) in order to distinguish the physiological state of hunger from indicators of food availability.<ref name="Coleman-Jensen">{{Cite web|url=https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/94849/err-270.pdf?v=963.1|title=Household Food Security in the United States in 2018|last=Coleman-Jensen|access-date=6 December 2019|archive-date=6 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206110348/http://ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/94849/err-270.pdf?v=963.1|url-status=live}}</ref> Food insecure is when food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food.<ref name="Coleman-Jensen"/> [[Food security]] statistics is measured by using survey data, based on household responses to items about whether the household was able to obtain enough food to meet their needs.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/94849/err-270.pdf?v=963.1|title=Household Food Security in the United states in 2018|last=Coleman-Jensen|access-date=6 December 2019|archive-date=6 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206110348/http://ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/94849/err-270.pdf?v=963.1|url-status=live}}</ref>