Which of the following best differentiates 'hunger' from 'food insecurity' and explains why hunger is the most extreme form?

• A. Hunger is the physiological sensation and state of insufficient food intake; food insecurity is the broader condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food, with hunger being its most extreme manifestation.
• B. Hunger refers only to temporary lack of calories often due to short-term fasting, whereas food insecurity refers only to chronic lack of national food production regardless of access or distribution, and hunger cannot occur without national production failure.
• C. Hunger is a policy term referring to food aid delivery failure, and food insecurity is a clinical diagnosis based on body mass index thresholds, so hunger is the policy-level expression of food insecurity.
• D. Hunger is the social experience of food scarcity seen in communities where income, market access, discrimination and political exclusion limit people’s ability to obtain adequate diet, whereas food insecurity is strictly an anthropometric classification based on height and weight measurements; hunger is extreme because it directly affects survival.

Answer: (A)