6 ms·

I cannot understand how it is possible that the phrases like "food security" instead of "hunger" became used widespread organically seemingly out of nowhere. Ge

I cannot understand how it is possible that the phrases like "food security" instead of "hunger" became used widespread organically seemingly out of nowhere. Genuine question, can someone explain that to me without resorting to some sort of conspiracy theories?

im3w1l 4y ago
My guess is that recently lots of people have come to associate hunger with their own failed attempts at losing weight rather than with poverty and desperation. Saying that you want to "end hunger" is not a message that will resonate with them.
woodruffw 4y ago
They encompass different things: hunger is a physical state, while food security is an economic, logistical, and environmental property. You don’t really need a conspiracy to prefer more precise terms.
dimitrios1 4y ago
Perhaps -- my guess -- its the recognition that they are fundamentally two different problems. Hunger of the previous generations was mostly due to countries not having enough agriculture or imports to feed their population. Today with modern farming and agriculture methods, hunger is mostly a distribution issue, rather than a we don't have enough food issue, so now food security is used as a more general term. My hunch is driven by -- may be getting the exact specifics wrong - that countries like America throw away enough food daily to satisfy much of the remaining world hunger.
Nowado 4y ago
Nation states don't get hungry. Similarly to 'target neutralization' being called inhuman description of murder, both terms are about exactly what they say they are. People being hungry near you is an 'individual problem', but with police intact you're roughly fine (under assumptions). If your country is facing food security crisis, it will likely spread to other domains and you are not fine.
poszlem 4y ago
So, to clarify, I am not arguing that food insecurity and hunger are two separate things (even though to me it still sounds like some sort of newspeak). My question was more about the speed with which that term became deployed everywhere.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I think it’s more likely that you just didn’t notice it. My lay observation is that “food security” has been the standard term in non-profit/NGO contexts for at least 15 years, while “hunger” is still colloquial. My guess for why is precision.
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    Maybe it's the same Euphemism Treadmill that George Carlin performed[1] about, how "Shell Shock" evolved into the softer, jargony "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      The euphemism treadmill is real, but this is the exact opposite: we’ve gone from a dated euphemism to a medical term.
    - strbean 4y ago
      I think "shell shock" vs. "PTSD" is a poor example of euphemistic language. The name "shell shock" is just inaccurate and misleading. It's a product of the poor understanding we had at the time. It would be confusing to explain how someone got shell shock from sexual assault, for example. The intermediate names Carlin mentions, however, are absolute euphemistic bullshit. "Battle fatigue" and "operational exhaustion" were strictly rebrands with the intent of minimizing the problem.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  They are slightly different. Hunger, in the strictest sense, is about a lack of calories. This made sense as a metric to track, when the issue was almost entirely people who starved to death. Now however, first in the developed world and also in many developing countries the issue is also calorie quality, usually a lack of access to non-junk foods. You can now be both malnourished and obese.
tantalor 4y ago
> became used widespread organically seemingly out of nowhere Except, it didn't? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=hunger,food%20security https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=... Just because you are just now noticing something common doesn't mean it recently became common.
- hammock 4y ago
  I appreciate the effort to apply data. There are alternative facts, though: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2Cfood+security&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2...
  - Shared404 4y ago
    I'd like to take this opportunity to point out a common statistical manipulation - extending an axis far longer than is at all relevant to the data, creating a misleading interpretation of a slope. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2Cfood+security&year_start=1940&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2... is a much more readable and accurate graph. Note how both are ~equivalent for a majority of the time, barring 1943 - 1951 (slight edge for food security) and 1960-1970 (larger lead for 'world hunger'). At 1970, food insecurity takes and maintains control. This is likely because it - as discussed in the rest of the thread - encompasses more, and is a more useful term for scholarly discussion.
    - Sapere_Aude 4y ago
      Right around the time when the Trilateral Commission, the Club of Rome and other elitist think tanks / NGOs were founded to push globalization, development and such ideas.
  - tantalor 4y ago
    Great find! Sounds like this term became popular in the 1970s. That was a while ago :)
nells 4y ago
Because it’s not organic. Of course if you reject “conspiracy theories” then you will reject the answer.
jackmott42 4y ago
preferred words change constantly, its all senseless, but it won't stop, and it doesn't matter. just go with it, or be angry all the time.
jabroni_salad 4y ago
I first heard about it in an economics podcast about food deserts so I figure it came from that realm. The entire planet is 3 missed meals away from total anarchy. The reason it is prominent (IMO) is that any politician who fails to deliver on food may as well dumpster the rest of their platform. Ensuring the acquisition and availability of food is every country's #1 priority, and "food security" covers all of the political and logistical and agricultural activities that need to happen for that priority to be delivered.
rr808 4y ago
Maybe the distrinction comes from the West where food charities help out with food for hunger, but they aren't in danger of starving to death like many 3rd world countries.
goodpoint 4y ago
They are not the same thing. Food insecurity is broader than just hunger. https://foodforward.org/food-security/what-is-food-insecurity/ https://foodforward.org/food-security/what-is-food-insecurit... No need for silly conspiracy theories.
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Enginerrrd 4y ago
I think they refer to different things. I could ask why use the term "Hunger" rather than "Starvation" or "malnutrition" etc. Food security I think of as a measure of the risk associated of available nutrient supplies not being adequate to meet the need (not the market demand, as that may differ) of people in a particular locality. Hunger is an end state feeling in a human-being when they feel the need to eat. You can have terrible food security and no hunger if there is tremendous risk of mass starvation due to small unforseen disruptions in supply, but there is existing supply and forecasted supply to meet demand if all goes well.
slothtrop 4y ago
For motte-and-bailey reasons. Food insecurity in my country means not being able to access food in "socially acceptable ways". It has nothing to do with hunger, it means collecting money from the govt or food stamps etc. But when invoked, it's meant to convey that a large fraction of people are going hungry, incidentally often calling for an expansion of spending which would also not reduce food insecurity because by definition it's not "socially acceptable". Better wages and employment addresses it.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Same reason cops say shit like "this particular individual" instead of "this person". People think being wordy makes them sound sophisticated. To those saying that "hunger" refers specifically to a physical state, we used to have the term "world hunger", and we obviously weren't talking about the planet itself being hungry.

im3w1l 4y ago

My guess is that recently lots of people have come to associate hunger with their own failed attempts at losing weight rather than with poverty and desperation. Saying that you want to "end hunger" is not a message that will resonate with them.

woodruffw 4y ago

They encompass different things: hunger is a physical state, while food security is an economic, logistical, and environmental property. You don’t really need a conspiracy to prefer more precise terms.

dimitrios1 4y ago

Perhaps -- my guess -- its the recognition that they are fundamentally two different problems. Hunger of the previous generations was mostly due to countries not having enough agriculture or imports to feed their population. Today with modern farming and agriculture methods, hunger is mostly a distribution issue, rather than a we don't have enough food issue, so now food security is used as a more general term. My hunch is driven by -- may be getting the exact specifics wrong - that countries like America throw away enough food daily to satisfy much of the remaining world hunger.

Nowado 4y ago

Nation states don't get hungry. Similarly to 'target neutralization' being called inhuman description of murder, both terms are about exactly what they say they are. People being hungry near you is an 'individual problem', but with police intact you're roughly fine (under assumptions). If your country is facing food security crisis, it will likely spread to other domains and you are not fine.

poszlem 4y ago

So, to clarify, I am not arguing that food insecurity and hunger are two separate things (even though to me it still sounds like some sort of newspeak). My question was more about the speed with which that term became deployed everywhere.

woodruffw 4y ago
I think it’s more likely that you just didn’t notice it. My lay observation is that “food security” has been the standard term in non-profit/NGO contexts for at least 15 years, while “hunger” is still colloquial. My guess for why is precision.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Maybe it's the same Euphemism Treadmill that George Carlin performed[1] about, how "Shell Shock" evolved into the softer, jargony "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    The euphemism treadmill is real, but this is the exact opposite: we’ve gone from a dated euphemism to a medical term.
  - strbean 4y ago
    I think "shell shock" vs. "PTSD" is a poor example of euphemistic language. The name "shell shock" is just inaccurate and misleading. It's a product of the poor understanding we had at the time. It would be confusing to explain how someone got shell shock from sexual assault, for example. The intermediate names Carlin mentions, however, are absolute euphemistic bullshit. "Battle fatigue" and "operational exhaustion" were strictly rebrands with the intent of minimizing the problem.
bobthepanda 4y ago
They are slightly different. Hunger, in the strictest sense, is about a lack of calories. This made sense as a metric to track, when the issue was almost entirely people who starved to death. Now however, first in the developed world and also in many developing countries the issue is also calorie quality, usually a lack of access to non-junk foods. You can now be both malnourished and obese.

tantalor 4y ago

> became used widespread organically seemingly out of nowhere Except, it didn't? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=hunger,food%20security https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=... Just because you are just now noticing something common doesn't mean it recently became common.

hammock 4y ago
I appreciate the effort to apply data. There are alternative facts, though: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2Cfood+security&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2...
- Shared404 4y ago
  I'd like to take this opportunity to point out a common statistical manipulation - extending an axis far longer than is at all relevant to the data, creating a misleading interpretation of a slope. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2Cfood+security&year_start=1940&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2... is a much more readable and accurate graph. Note how both are ~equivalent for a majority of the time, barring 1943 - 1951 (slight edge for food security) and 1960-1970 (larger lead for 'world hunger'). At 1970, food insecurity takes and maintains control. This is likely because it - as discussed in the rest of the thread - encompasses more, and is a more useful term for scholarly discussion.
  - Sapere_Aude 4y ago
    Right around the time when the Trilateral Commission, the Club of Rome and other elitist think tanks / NGOs were founded to push globalization, development and such ideas.
- tantalor 4y ago
  Great find! Sounds like this term became popular in the 1970s. That was a while ago :)

nells 4y ago

Because it’s not organic. Of course if you reject “conspiracy theories” then you will reject the answer.

jackmott42 4y ago

preferred words change constantly, its all senseless, but it won't stop, and it doesn't matter. just go with it, or be angry all the time.

jabroni_salad 4y ago

I first heard about it in an economics podcast about food deserts so I figure it came from that realm. The entire planet is 3 missed meals away from total anarchy. The reason it is prominent (IMO) is that any politician who fails to deliver on food may as well dumpster the rest of their platform. Ensuring the acquisition and availability of food is every country's #1 priority, and "food security" covers all of the political and logistical and agricultural activities that need to happen for that priority to be delivered.

rr808 4y ago

Maybe the distrinction comes from the West where food charities help out with food for hunger, but they aren't in danger of starving to death like many 3rd world countries.

goodpoint 4y ago

They are not the same thing. Food insecurity is broader than just hunger. https://foodforward.org/food-security/what-is-food-insecurity/ https://foodforward.org/food-security/what-is-food-insecurit... No need for silly conspiracy theories.

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deleted 4y ago

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Enginerrrd 4y ago

I think they refer to different things. I could ask why use the term "Hunger" rather than "Starvation" or "malnutrition" etc. Food security I think of as a measure of the risk associated of available nutrient supplies not being adequate to meet the need (not the market demand, as that may differ) of people in a particular locality. Hunger is an end state feeling in a human-being when they feel the need to eat. You can have terrible food security and no hunger if there is tremendous risk of mass starvation due to small unforseen disruptions in supply, but there is existing supply and forecasted supply to meet demand if all goes well.

slothtrop 4y ago

For motte-and-bailey reasons. Food insecurity in my country means not being able to access food in "socially acceptable ways". It has nothing to do with hunger, it means collecting money from the govt or food stamps etc. But when invoked, it's meant to convey that a large fraction of people are going hungry, incidentally often calling for an expansion of spending which would also not reduce food insecurity because by definition it's not "socially acceptable". Better wages and employment addresses it.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

Same reason cops say shit like "this particular individual" instead of "this person". People think being wordy makes them sound sophisticated. To those saying that "hunger" refers specifically to a physical state, we used to have the term "world hunger", and we obviously weren't talking about the planet itself being hungry.