It is common to use the word "hunger" to express the immediate need for food – a feeling that, for most of us, is fleeting and ends with the next meal. However, the term takes on a technical meaning to describe Severe Food Insecurity, which is not always temporary and invariably reflects a fragility in our rights structure. To understand the current scenario and the relevance of the thought of economist and philosopher Amartya Sen in this context, it is necessary, first, to decipher the concepts through data. This is because the definition of hunger varies between statistical metrics and the philosophical perspective adopted to understand it.
Food security
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food security is not just about "having something to eat" today. It is about continuous access to food in sufficient quantity and quality, without forcing individuals to sacrifice other basic needs, such as rent or health, nor compromising the subsistence of future generations. In Brazil, this is a constitutional right (Article 6).[1] guaranteed by the National System for Food and Nutritional Security (Sisan) (BRAZIL, 2006).
How do you measure it?
To measure the effectiveness of this right and to categorize hunger, Brazil uses the EBIA (Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale), which stratifies the reality of Brazilian households into four levels.[2]:
- Food Safety: Full and regular access to food.
- Mild insecurity: When uncertainty or concern arises regarding access to food in the future, compromising diet quality in order to preserve quantity.
- Moderate Insecurity: Quantitative reduction of food intake and/or disruption in eating patterns among adults.
- Serious insecurity: This represents a severe disruption in access to food, where hunger manifests itself physically, compromising the quality and reducing the quantity of food for all family members residing in the household, both adults and children.
Globally, the FAO uses the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) and the Prevalence of Undernourishment Index (PoU). While the PoU measures the percentage of the population that does not consume enough calories for an active life in the long term, the FIES assesses access to adequate food and is widely adopted in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
The Hunger Map: The Dignity Thermometer
Contrary to what the name suggests, the Hunger Map is not a fixed geographical map, but an annual statistical report from the UN/FAO. A country enters the Hunger Map when chronic undernourishment or malnutrition (the PoU index) reaches 2,5% or more of its population. Below 2,5%, hunger ceases to be considered a structural and widespread problem, but rather a residual problem that requires focused policies.
Regional and global overview
In the Latin American and Caribbean region, geographical inequality is stark: in 2023, moderate or severe food insecurity in the Caribbean reached 58,8% of the population, more than double the rate recorded in Central America (28,2%) and South America (25,1%). While South America shows improvements, the Caribbean has registered a marginal increase in severe food insecurity since 2021. Factors such as income concentration, social exclusion, and poverty – exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic – continue to limit access to an adequate diet (RAMÍREZ-JUÁREZ, 2022).
According to the FAO's SOFI 2025 report, the world shows signs of a reduction in hunger, with the affected global population falling from 8,7% in 2022 to 8,2% in 2024. Despite this decrease, the challenge remains monumental: approximately 720 million people face hunger and 2,3 billion live in moderate or severe food insecurity. This reality threatens the achievement of SDG 2 and the entire 2030 Agenda, compromising public health and the stability of global agri-food systems.
In this context, leaving the UN Hunger Map is a strategic victory, but not the end of the game. A country can statistically disappear from the map by reducing its chronic undernourishment, but still have millions of citizens experiencing moderate food insecurity.
The Brazilian and regional reality
In 2026, Brazil will celebrate a historic milestone by consolidating its exit from the UN Hunger Map for the second time, as shown in the graph.
By reaching a rate of 2,4% undernourishment, Brazil not only reversed the setbacks of previous three-year periods, but also became a beacon of recovery for all of Latin America. In the post-pandemic scenario, the country showed a more pronounced decrease in food insecurity than the global and regional average, consolidating the effectiveness of coordinated public policies, such as Bolsa Família, the National School Feeding Program (PNAE), and the Food Acquisition Program (PAA).
Although the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has fallen to 5,4% in the last three years, the progress reported by the FAO (2022-2024) does not negate the fact that food insecurity remains a persistent challenge. For Brazil, the region, and the world, the fight against hunger is still hampered by political and social issues that exacerbate structural inequalities, requiring continued attention even though the country is no longer on the Hunger Map.
To understand the complexity of the problem, it is necessary to differentiate the metrics: while the FAO map monitors the macro supply of calories and chronic consumption, the Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale (EBIA) focuses on daily household life. It is the EBIA that captures the distress of families who replace proteins with ultra-processed foods or reduce portions to prioritize food for their children.
Data from the 2025 PNAD Continuous Survey reinforce that, although outside the international map, the internal challenge persists (IBGE, 2025):
- Severe Food Insecurity (Hunger): It decreased from 4,1% to 3,2% of households between 2023 and 2024.
- In absolute numbers: Around 2,5 million Brazilian households were still experiencing hunger in 2024/2025.
- The "Queue" of Insecurity: 28 million people remain without the guarantee of a healthy and regular diet when we include both mild and moderate forms of food insecurity.
These indicators show that, despite global statistical progress, the persistence of deprivation in millions of households reveals deep flaws in our rights framework.
Amartya Sen[3] and data to fuel hope
From Amartya Sen's perspective, the technical gradation of food insecurity takes on a profound ethical dimension. For the Nobel laureate in Economics, hunger in a country that achieves record harvests in 2026 is not a problem of production, but of "capacities" (SEN, 2010). When a household is classified as severely food insecure, the data does not merely record the absence of calories; it reveals the curtailment of freedom. After all, a child who does not eat has their learning compromised, and a malnourished adult is prevented from fully participating in productive and democratic life.
Thus, the EBIA (Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale) not only counts empty plates, it maps where autonomy is denied to human beings. Leaving the Hunger Map is a victory that demands constant vigilance, as the consequences of food insecurity are profound, lasting, and collective. They manifest silently in childhood cognitive delays – generating a social and economic cost that will be felt in the medium and long term – and in public health, where mild food insecurity ironically fuels obesity through the consumption of cheap ultra-processed foods.
These implications reveal that hunger is not merely an individual tragedy, but an obstacle to development: a hungry worker produces less and gets sick more often, burdening the system and hindering Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Therefore, food security must be treated as a basic national infrastructure, as vital to sustainable economic growth as roads or energy.
Hunger is everyone's problem. After all, a society is only truly sovereign when its people don't need courage to face the next morning with an empty stomach.
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
[1] In Brazil, food was officially included among the social rights in the Federal Constitution on February 4, 2010, through Constitutional Amendment No. 64.
[2] The Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD Contínua), conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), adopts the EBIA in its supplementary module on Food Security.
[3] Born in India in 1933, Sen is an economist and philosopher, a professor at Harvard, and the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics. He is known as the "economist of the poor" for having dedicated his career to understanding the causes of hunger, inequality, and poverty.
References
- BRAZIL. Law No. 11.346, of September 15, 2006. Creates the National System for Food and Nutritional Security – SISAN with a view to ensuring the human right to adequate food, and provides other measures. Brasília, DF: Official Gazette of the Union, 2006.
- FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024: Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. Rome: FAO, 2024.
- FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025: Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its formsRome: FAO, 2025. Available at: fao.org/publications/sofi.
- RAMÍREZ-JUÁREZ, Javier. Food security and family farming in Mexico. Mexican Journal of Agricultural Sciences, v. 13, no. 3, p. 553–565, 8 Aug. 2022.
- IBGE Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD Contínua): Food Security 2024-2025🇧🇷 Rio de Janeiro: IBGE, 2025.
- SEN, Amartya. Development as freedomTranslated by Laura Teixeira Motta. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2010.
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