Abstract:
Food insecurity is a pressing public health concern in many developing countries. Despite widespread
interest in the sociocultural determinants of food insecurity, little is known about whether youths
living in food insecure households experience food insecurity. The buffering hypothesis reviewed
here assumes that, to the extent possible, adult members of households will buffer younger household
members from the ill effects of food insecurity. A variant of the buffering hypothesis argues that
only certain members of the households will enjoy the benefits of buffering. We hypothesize that
within the context of Ethiopia, where girls have historically experienced discrimination, buffering is
preferentially aimed at boys, especially as the household experiences greater levels of food stress.
These hypotheses are tested using data from a population-based study of 2084 adolescents living in
southwestern Ethiopia. Results indicate that boys and girls were equally likely to be living in severely
food insecure households. Despite no differences in their households’ food insecurity status, girls
were more likely than boys to report being food insecure themselves. This gender difference was the
largest in severely food insecure households. This same pattern was observed when comparing malefemale sibling pairs living in the same household. These results are among the first to show that
household level measures of food insecurity predict adolescent experiences of food insecurity, and
that in the Ethiopian socio-cultural context, the relationship between household level food insecurity
and adolescent food insecurity varies by gender. We also show that adolescent food insecurity is
strongly associated with measures of general health and well-being.
