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According to the 1996 World Food Summit, food secu-rity exists when “all people, at all times, have physi-cal and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutri-tious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”1 Food security is essential for public health2...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.622.8693 http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2010/01/25/cmaj.091297.full.pdf |
| Summary: | According to the 1996 World Food Summit, food secu-rity exists when “all people, at all times, have physi-cal and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutri-tious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”1 Food security is essential for public health2 and important for child development. Subopti-mal food security, or food insecurity, has deleterious effects on children’s academic performance and psychosocial devel-opment.3,4 In Canada, food insecurity is higher in the three ter-ritories than in the provinces.5 According to limited data, a high degree of food insecurity exists among Inuit in particu-lar.6,7 Further, in most remote communities, the cost of food is at least double that in southern Canadian cities.8 We assessed the prevalence of food insecurity among Inuit preschool-aged children. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional survey of the health of preschool-aged Inuit children in the late summer and fall of 2007 and 2008 in 16 of the 25 communities of Nunavut. The communities we included in the survey represented all three regions of the territory. These communities were |
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