Table 2.

Bivariate analyses of positive answers to food insecurity questionnaire items and the frailty index score among the representative sample of community-dwelling Mexican adults aged 60 years or older, 2012 Mexican Survey on Nutrition and Health (ENSANUT; Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutrición)

	Frailty index≥0·21		Frailty index<0·21
	n	%	n	%	P value
‘In the last 3 months, due to lack of money or other resources, did you or any other adult in this household …’*
‘… were worried because of shortage of food?’	2205	68·63	2239	57·48	<0·001
‘… run out of food?’	948	29·51	824	21·16	<0·001
‘… not have a healthy, nutritive or balanced diet?’	1666	51·85	1664	42·72	<0·001
‘… have a diet with a poor variety?’	1824	56·77	1815	46·6	<0·001
‘… skip breakfast, lunch or dinner?’	822	25·58	703	18·05	<0·001
‘… eat less than you should?’	1182	36·79	1030	26·44	<0·001
‘… were hungry but not eat?’	833	25·93	693	17·79	<0·001
‘… just eat once a day or skip an entire day?’	600	20·54	531	13·63	<0·001
‘In the last 3 months, due to lack of money or other resources, did any 18-year or younger person living in this household …’†
‘… was left without a healthy, balanced, or nutritive diet?’	312	37·37	309	31·99	0·049
‘… had a diet based on scarce variety of food?.	352	42·16	349	36·13	0·018
‘… had to skip breakfast, lunch or dinner?’	135	16·17	144	14·91	0·645
‘… had to eat less than he/she should?/	197	23·95	202	20·91	0·392
‘… had to reduce the quantity of served meals?’	224	26·83	218	22·57	0·102
‘… was hungry but did not eat?’	119	14·25	119	12·32	0·335
‘… only ate once in a day or did not eat at all?’	93	11·14	99	10·25	0·706
Food insecurity category‡
Secure	679	36·10	1202	63·90	<0·001
Mild	1236	43·99	1574	56·01
Moderate	786	52·19	720	47·81
Severe	512	56·20	399	43·80

^*These questions were asked of all older adults (n 7108).

^†These questions were asked only of older adults with an 18-year-old or younger person living in the same household (n 1801; 25·34 %).

^‡Percentages are for frail and non-frail.