Book Chapter
Measuring Food Security Using Respondents' Perception of Food Consumption Adequacy

This chapter compares information on self-perceived food consumption adequacy from the subjective modules of household surveys with standard quantitative indicators, namely calorie consumption, dietary diversity, and anthropometry. Datasets from four countries are analysed: Albania, Indonesia, Madagascar, and Nepal. The chapter concludes that while subjective food adequacy indicators may provide insight on the vulnerability or ‘relative’ dimension of food insecurity, they are too blunt an indicator for food insecurity targeting. An effort towards developing improved subjective food security modules that are contextually sensitive should go hand in hand with research into how to improve household survey data for food security measurement along other dimensions of the phenomenon, particularly calorie consumption.