One in every 14 Portuguese families is unable to buy enough food as they do not have the money, according to the Directorate General of Health.
The coordinator of the National Programme for the Promotion of Healthy Eating, Pedro Graça, said the findings are worrying but this statistic may not give a true picture across the country as the data was collected only from those using the National Health Service.
Households without enough to eat declined from 8.8% in 2012 to 6.6% in 2014, while those with worries about getting enough food (food insecurity) rose from 8.1% to 9.5%, according to data in the report "Portugal - Healthy Eating in Numbers 2015."
The coordinator of the programme said that families with limited access to food can be identified, allowing authorities to act more quickly in getting them the support they need.
In general, the families that need the most help are those that have poor education living in the Algarve and the Lisbon and Tagus Valley regions.
Graça added that food insecurity can coexist with excess weight, noting that high-calorie and junk foods are cheap.
"The new poor don’t really know how to deal with poverty and are the most affected by food insecurity than families which for years have been dealing with the same old reality and already have more structured support systems, such as the use of food banks.
As for obesity, in 2014, more than half of the over 18-year-old Portuguese population (52.8%) is overweight. The increase in obesity has been found mainly in women and in people aged 45 to 74.
For children and adolescents, overweight seems to be stabilising or even reducing when comparing the 2008 figures with those taken in 2013.
However, Portugal is higher than the European average for young people carrying excess weight.
