Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2011, 8 360 undertaken, thus the distribution of calories is based on the previous survey). This emphasizes only the benefits of policies and programs focused on food availability, which we now understand is a limited view. Studies show that rising production may not have any impact on people’s access to food, and does not take into account the quality of food accessed or consumed [5,6]. The fact that hunger statistics deal only with caloric intake has been heavily criticized by nutritionists and by scholars advocating for a multi-dimensional idea of food security (Figure 1). A strictly calorie-based approach is incoherent with the widely accepted definition of food security given at the 1996 World Food Summit, according to which, ―Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life‖ [7]. The stress on ―safe and nutritious food‖, as well as the final goal to ensure ―an active and healthy life‖ calls for a broader, though more complex, analysis of people’s diet. Figure 1. The four dimensions of food security. What does it mean to be hungry? In its common usage, hunger describes the subjective feeling of discomfort that follows a period without eating [8]; however even temporary periods of hunger can be debilitating to longer term human growth and development [9]. We may further distinguish acute from chronic hunger: the first situation occurs when the insufficient intake of food is temporary, usually