Food & nutrition security
Hidden Hunger
Chronic deficiency of vitamins and minerals in diets that may be adequate in calories — affecting over two billion people without visible hunger.
Definition
Hidden hunger is a chronic lack of essential micronutrients — vitamins and minerals such as iron, iodine, vitamin A, and zinc — in the diet, occurring even where food supply meets energy needs. Because people affected are not hungry in the classical sense, the condition often goes unnoticed while impairing immunity, growth, cognition, and productivity; FAO estimates the global toll exceeds two billion people.
References
definition and scale
Overview
What it means
Hidden hunger explains why "enough food" is not "good nutrition": monotonous, calorie-dense diets lacking fruit, vegetables, and animal-source foods deliver energy without micronutrients. Subclinical deficiency — no goitre, no blindness, but weakened immunity and stunted cognition — is the larger, invisible share of the problem. Main remedies are dietary diversification, fortification, and supplementation.
How it is used
The concept guides nutrition policy, school-feeding and fortification programmes, and SDG 2's framing of ending "all forms of malnutrition".
Why it matters
It reframes food security from quantity to quality — a prerequisite for human-capital development.
Review
Public comments appear only after editor acceptance. Draft comments stay in the review queue.
Reviewers choose the definition or an overview paragraph, leave a comment or replacement, and attach evidence or a source link.
Editors compare reviewer cards side by side. AI may help find agreement, conflicts, unsupported claims and possible source issues.
Only an editor-accepted synthesis changes the public page. Reviewer identities are shown only with consent and an editorial decision to attribute them.
Submitted reviews stay private until an editor decides whether to accept and attribute them.
Contribute to this entry
Help improve this definition
Your contribution is private while it is checked. Nothing changes on this page unless an editor accepts it.
Loading verified endorsements… Endorsements are not votes and never determine publication.
Endorse this definition
Endorse the exact version shown here. This is not a vote, and publication remains an editorial decision.
Review board
Comment on a specific line. Each reviewer stays separate until an editor accepts a merged draft.
Each person comments on the definition or overview in their own draft card, with role, evidence and suggested wording kept together.
AI can compare comments against the current text, flag conflicting claims, surface missing evidence and identify where reviewers agree.
An editor merges compatible suggestions into a draft change, checks sources, records disagreements and decides what can be published.