Chapter 15 – Food Security and Sustainability

In this chapter, we will examine how issues of food security and sustainability affect the health of the individual. 

Human nutrition and the health of the world’s ecosystem are interdependent, meaning that what we eat and where we get it from affects the world. In turn, the health of the earth influences our health. The term sustainability is used to indicate approaches aimed at reducing human impact on the environment. Sustainability promotes the development of conditions which allow people and nature to interact harmoniously.  Sustainability includes not only a focus on the environment but also on economic, political, and social development issues.  These four dimensions are included in the Circles of Sustainability approach,  a process that a community may use to examine all of the dimensions necessary for creating sustainable cities and communities. See one example of a circle developed for the city of Sao Paulo below. 

^{Urban sustainability analysis of the greater urban area of the city of Sao Paulo using the ‘Circles of Sustainability’ method of the UN Global Compact Cities Programme.SaintGeorgeIV CC BY-SA 3.0}

Contributor: Sarah Walter,