According to the latest report from the United Nations' report State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI 2025), an estimated 8.2 percent of the global population, about 673 million people, experienced hunger in 2024, marking a slight decline from previous years yet leaving millions still in urgent need. Nearly 60 percent of those affected are women and girls, who face systemic inequalities that increase their vulnerability to food insecurity. In many cultures, women eat last and least while bearing caregiving responsibilities, despite having limited access to resources and opportunities that could enhance household food security. Addressing this global crisis requires gender-responsive policies and empowering women as central agents in the fight to end hunger and malnutrition.
What Is Food Insecurity?
Food insecurity is the lack of access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food necessary for healthy and active lives. It appears in two main forms:
Very low food security (hunger): when there is inadequate access to food.
Low food security: when available food lacks nutritional value, leading to chronic health problems.
Food Insecurity in America
In this twenty-first century, in this land of plenty and opportunity, food insecurity remains a widespread challenge that profoundly affects women and their children.
Across the United States, approximately 47 million people, including 14 million children, live in food-insecure households. Among older Americans, nearly 14 million experience food insecurity, and that number continues to rise as the population ages. Women face some of the highest rates: an estimated 18 to 20 percent experience food insecurity, and about 6 to 7 percent face the most severe form characterized by hunger.
Root Causes and Contributing Factors
The fundamental cause of food insecurity is poverty, compounded by low wages, unemployment, family instability, and systemic barriers such as urban or rural food deserts where access is limited to costly, highly processed convenience items. Severe weather events driven by climate change also disproportionately affect vulnerable communities, where drought and flooding can destroy food gardens and small-scale farms that families depend on for survival.
Policy and Transparency Challenges
Food insecurity in America is deepening amid economic pressures and shifting federal policy. A particularly troubling development is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s termination of its annual Household Food Security Report, a key national resource for nearly three decades. This report documented the scope and trends of hunger and helped guide both public and private response programs.
Its cancellation has reduced transparency and weakened our ability to monitor food insecurity. Many analysts view this as part of a broader retreat from accountability, especially as federal aid programs face severe funding cuts. At the same time, reductions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) through stricter work requirements and tighter eligibility rules for immigrants are compounding household hardship. The continuing government shutdown has further interrupted SNAP benefits, leaving high-poverty states unable to fill funding gaps and placing heavier demands on charities already stretched thin.
The Expanding Human Toll
Food insecurity in America now reflects a deepening societal and moral crisis. As federal institutions retreat from responsibility, the burden increasingly falls on local communities, faith groups, and nonprofits to meet the most basic human need: ensuring everyone has enough to eat. Sustained hunger and poor nutrition have lasting consequences for health, productivity, and social stability. Addressing food insecurity is not only a women’s issue but a national humanitarian imperative that calls us to realign policy and practice with the core values of compassion, equity, and shared well-being.