The Workshop on Understanding the Relationship Between Food Insecurity and Obesity, held in Washington, DC, from Nov. 16 -18, 2010, was designed to provide an opportunity to explore and illuminate the relationship between food insecurity and obesity, the current state of research, and data and analyses needed to advance understanding of the relationship as a way of countering both hunger and obesity in the United States. 

This is a report of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board, which was commissioned by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. It is available here by permission. It may also be obtained through the Institute of Medicine website. This is the final version of the report. An earlier, prepublication version was made available in November 2010, but should no longer be used. This final version includes some important corrections.

This study identifies how spending patterns, such as the rate at which households spend their benefit, changed following the ARRA benefit increase and analyzes how spending patterns differed across household characteristics, time and states.

The report is based on a telephone survey of all states with SLEB agreements and case studies of 6 states with noteworthy levels of SLEB agreement-generated activity.