Comments

What significance has the criterion of skipping meals at least once a year? This just asks for unusual events (a long bush trek, hunting or fishing expedition for instance) to sway the results. Also, you do not seem to be worried about "miraculous" convergence of responses between rural and urban environments that are markedly different in all respects, and yet they yield the same answers. This could point to your questions probing human psychology rather than actual environmental conditions. For instance, how different would be the answers from arguably well fed Queensland?

Agree with what you said. In the rural areas no work, no food or might put it this way, out of thy sweat he shall eat, lazy people should not eat.

In my country eating meal 3x per day is not our custom, we eat whenever we feel like. Those who says they don't eat could be those living in towns or urban drift but mostly in Papua New Guinea we own lands to grow our own food enough for the consumption ... it shouldn't be a PNG hungry country. I am employed in formal sector, I don't spend most of my income on importing good only a bit and most food comes from my backyard garden or market.

This report is totally full of crap!!!... Whoever did the survey doesn't understand the PNG lifestyle. For your information, we in the rural Highlands can eat in bowl dishes... plates are very tiny compared to the size and amount of food that will be served.

Population is growing rapidly in PNG. Birth spacing is decreasing. Pressure on land is increasing. These factors, among others, increase the likelihood that nutritional needs may not be met for many people. There is certainly a need to monitor the well-being of people with respect to nutrition. But surveys of this kind must be done well or their results will be unreliable. As Bryant stressed, the survey questions listed in PNG Demographic and Health Survey could not, as posed, answer questions about hunger in PNG. I think I myself could answer ‘yes’ or ‘probably yes’ to all of them! To accept one person’s response that they had gone without food for one whole day in a full year as evidence that that person’s household experienced hunger is seriously wrong. For 30 years I have been visiting people in the Nomad area of Western Province. A major component of past initiation practices was the requirement that novitiates went without certain things – tobacco, water, certain foods – for hours, a few days or (with some foods) until the time they married. They were being taught that, in the boom-bust environment where they lived, short-falls were to be expected and they had better learn how to live in this kind of a world. In the year of their initiation all these strong and healthy youths and young men could have answered ‘yes’ to all the survey questions. Russ Stephenson has been working on issues of malnutrition in this region, though Covid-19 has postponed follow-up surveys. He is rightly concerned by observations of a high level of malnutrition in children though the possibility of lingering effects from a serious drought and earthquake need to be untangled. There will be people in PNG for whom adequate nutrition is problematic. It is important to learn where, and for whom, problems exist. Regrettably, I do not think the survey summarized in this article addresses either of these needs in ways that would be wise to act upon.

Thank you everyone for the comments. In response to a few of the specific queries: 1. The questionnaire wasn’t translated, but the interviews were trained and they translated as needed as they asked the questions. 2. Our understanding is that “whole day” was intended to be 24 hours. 3. If the respondent said yes to not eating for a whole day, it was at least once in the last year. (The survey though was carried out in different parts of the country over three years.) 4. The survey doesn’t assume that people have or are meant to have three meals a day. 5. That’s a very interesting point about eating (or not eating) “real food”. 6. It is certainly true that individual survey questions might get interpreted in different ways, and in unintended ways. However, the eight questions give fairly consistent answers. And three other surveys show widespread calorific deficiencies. Just some more background on the survey: We should have mentioned that it was implemented in PNG by PNG’s National Statistical Office. The DHS itself is an international survey. These questions on food security were developed by the FAO and have been used in a large number of countries, both developed and developing. Although we didn’t report it, typically an index of food security is created based on all the questions. The PNG DHS report does this and calculates that 57% of the population of PNG experiences moderate to severe food insecurity. This is actually the average for Sub-Saharan Africa (see Table 3 of <a href="https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000117811/download/?_ga=2.221294424.1367782373.1621508675-834003342.1621508675" rel="nofollow ugc">this report</a>). The PNG report (which you can access <a href="https://www.dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-fr364-dhs-final-reports.cfm" rel="nofollow ugc">here</a>) also finds that the poor in PNG are more likely to experience food insecurity than the rich. Stephen and Manoj

Report is crap ... please understand our lifesty and the the variety of crops and what we see as a norm in our daily lives before coming up with your so called report. Also taking into consideration the level of literacy because if you just ask someone if they had eaten during the day, they say no even if they had eaten a cucumber or a mango.

There was a comment about enough food but not enough nutrition. I would suggest this is also seen in urban areas where diets have poor choices with sugary or processed products like white rice. Rice is a significant staple here but it’s polished (white) with all the balancing nutrients removed. Your body is only temporarily happy then it asks for more food to find the nutrients it needs. But more processed food continues the deficit. Which is why you see people growing larger and unhealthier. Village food may be simple but it does have better nutrient mix.

We are not a Hungry Nation. We have our resources available that we can make use of but because of our laziness to farm the land we ended up getting hungry. Don't compare your lifestyle with ours because we are all different. Traditionally we are still adapting to our ancestors way of living where sometimes we may skip meals otherwise we have a wide range of edible fruits that we take everyday and this becomes our everyday food.

I think nutrition is something to be more concerned about than hunger. In my experience growing up in a very rural village, we don't always have enough food in the house but we never went hungry. Not once. If I don't have enough food in the morning, then I'll go to the garden or into the forest and when I come back home, it's always with enough food. Not always enough for a "balanced diet", but food nevertheless. Neighbors were (and still are) very helpful. If I need some food right now, I can borrow from them. And when they need food later, they know they can always ask me. As a Papua New Guinean from a rural village, I really don't agree with the title. And as mentioned in one of the comments previously, fruits, nuts, vegetables, are not considered real food here.

Thank you Dr Neelesh for a thorough and simple analysis on the 2019-20 HIES report. There is a change in methodology in this HIES compared to the previous. Past reports were on the income approach and this report they change to the consumption approach. Can these be the cause of slight increase in poverty rate? If they would have remained on the income approach, my guess is the poverty rate would have reduced even further. Please your comments would be appreciated. Vinaka

PNG rural farmers rarely eat three meals a day. Breakfast is often skipped because work needs to be done before the day gets hot or the distance to the farming area is quite far. The only meal eaten as family is dinner, and in most cases is a heavy meal. Did the study consider this aspect when analyzing its data, or did it use the western lifestyle of three meals per day? Three meals/day is not PNG's lifestyle.