Table 1.

Examples of the stresses of acute and chronic food insecurity categorized according to the dimensions of food security and sustainability.

Chronicity	Dimension/level	Availability	Accessible	Utilization	Stability	Sustainability
Acute	Global/Regional	1. Regional natural disasters: floods, earthquakes, e.g., 2015 Pacific hurricane season 2. Large- scale manmade disasters: Wars/conflicts, e.g., World War I, II, Vietnam, Rwanda, Bosnia …	1. Economic: food price changes in international trade, e.g., 2007–2008 global food price crisis exacerbated the food insecurity in Sub Saharan Africa		Any acute stress disturbing the production-consumption pathway at any level, e.g., global/regional level: global or regional war; national/subnational level: natural disasters; household level: unemployment; individual level: diseases.	Not applied to acute stresses
	National/sub-national	1. Natural or manmade disaster, e.g., cyclones, Syria, civil war 2. Unstable political conditions, e.g., 1998 Sudan famine	1. Physical: destruction of infrastructure by natural or manmade disasters, e.g., 2008 China Wenchuan earthquake 2011 Japan Fukushima earthquake 2015 Nepal Gorkha earthquake 2011 Syria civil war	1. Breakdown in Sanitation—post natural disaster, e.g., earthquakes, floods
	Household		1. Economic: food price changes in domestic market; unemployment, 2. Family misfortune e.g., catastrophic expenditure (diseases, accidents), loss of labor force in households
	Individual			1. Acute diseases: acute infection, etc.
Chronic	Global/Regional	1. Regional natural disaster: drought, e.g., 2005–2006 West Africa 2. Unfair international trade policies manipulate food prices and jeopardize food security in developing regions (import/export)	1. Economic: increased international crop price damages food security in developing countries, especially those relying on import	Regional epidemics of communicable diseases:Polio in Nigeria, Ebola in West Africa SARS in East Asia	Not applied to chronic stresses.	Sustainability is the ecological long-term dimension of food security, which affects all levels from global to individual. 1. Global Warming Climate change—global /regional extreme weather conditions, increased frequency of natural disasters 2. Urbanization and soil productivity loss—loss of arable land 3. Biofuel in developed countries consumes large amount of crops 4. Increased demand for meat in emerging countries poses stress to environment, e.g., China, Brazil 5. Agriculture subsidies in rich countries made them dump their surplus to developing countries and damage their agricultural sector, e.g., EU dumping to African countries 6. Genetically-Modified-Organism may harm environment and nature, e.g., North America, China
	National/sub-national	1. National-scale natural disaster, e.g., drought, frequent cyclone and floods 2. Inadequacy in food imports, e.g., iron deficiency leads to high prevalence of anemia in Cuba	1. Physical: poor logistic chain/road rail infrastructures, e.g., remote areas 2. Economic: chronic poverty at national/sub-national level 3. Social-culture: gender bias makes girls and women vulnerable to food insecurity	1. Poor sanitation2. Poor health care/education 3. Food safety—pesticides residue, endocrine disrupting chemicals
	Household		1. Physical: lack of proper transport 2. Economic: poverty at household level 3. Social-cultural: gender inequity jeopardizes the allocation of food to women including pregnant women	1. Improper food conservation, processing and preparation
	Individual		1. Illness/aging/disability prevents mobility	1. Chronic Illness e.g., HIV/AIDS, diabetes affecting digestion, absorption and utilization of food