Food Insecurity and Mental Health

Since the poor health outcomes related to food insecurity may be more apparent in later life, Gyasi et al. (2020) analyzed the age and gender differences in the association between food insecurity with psychological disorders (PD) among older people in Ghana. The dataset was obtained from the 2016-2017 AgeHeaPsyWel-HeaSeeB Study, which included 1,200 individuals aged ≥50 years. Thirty-six percent complained of hunger, while other signs of food insecurity were breakfast skipping (29% prevalence) and consuming the first meal of the day late (observed in 5%). After adjusting the analysis model, presence of food insecurity significantly correlated with higher scores in the psychological disorder assessment, compared to absence of food insecurity. Additionally, having the first meal of the day late was related with a higher risk of having psychological disorders. These relationships were moderated by age and gender - men and those 65 years and over were more likely to have PD compared to women and those in the 50-64 age group. These results demonstrate that food insecurity independently increases incidence of psychological disorders in older people, which hopefully informs public health and policy interventions that support mental health enhancement in the elderly.