ناامنی غذایی و مشکلات رفتاری کودک در خانواده های شکننده Food insecurity and child behavior problems in fragile families

1. Introduction Food insecurity, the inability to access enough food to maintain a healthy and active life, is a persistent problem in the United States. Since the 2008, the rate of household food insecurity has hovered around 14%, which represents about one out of seven households (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2015). A large body of literature has documented the negative consequences of food insecurity on the well-being of children across the life-course (Alaimo et al., 2001; Belsky et al., 2010; Gundersen and Ziliak, 2015; Jyoti et al., 2005; Rose-Jacobs et al., 2008; Slopen et al., 2010). Food insecure children have poorer health outcomes and lag behind their peers in academic outcomes (Jyoti et al., 2005), leading to lower educational attainment. Furthermore, because food insecurity is concentrated among vulnerable households and children (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2015), another consequence of food insecurity is the growing inequality among children (Roustit et al., 2010). While there is ample evidence showing that food insecurity has negative impacts on child behavior problems (e.g. Huang et al., 2010; Kimbro and Denney, 2015), these studies have several methodological limitations. First, most studies on the relationship between food insecurity and child behavior problems do not account for unobserved heterogeneity except for a handful of them (Howard, 2011; Jyoti et al., 2005). Second, children, especially younger ones, tend to be shielded by their parents from experiencing food insecurity (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2013). Most studies on child food insecurity use a household-level measure of food insecurity, which likely overstates the actual prevalence of child food insecurity. Since no studies have compared estimates between child and household food insecurity, it is remains unknown as to how shielding affects the estimates of food insecurity from previous studies. Lastly, the mechanisms through which food insecurity may lead to child behavior problems are not well understood and few studies have tested them.