Food security is defined in its most basic form as access to adequate, safe and nutritious food
required for healthy and active life by all people at all times. Availability of food and access are two essential
determinants of food security. A number of factors such as income, educational level, household sizes are
known to affect household food security. Food insecurity, hunger and poverty are closely linked. The level of
poverty in Nigeria is high and the percentage of food insecure households in Nigeria was reported to be 18%
in 1986 and over 40% in 1998, the level in 2005 is not known. This study was therefore designed to assess
the food security status of households in some selected local government areas in two of the large cities
(Lagos and Ibadan) in Nigeria. A previous administration of this module suggested that food security is
associated with income and the households studied here have steady and definable income. The study
therefore was undertaken to describe the food security status of households headed or managed by
teachers employed in secondary and primary, public and private schools. The study was descriptive and
cross-sectional in design with a sample size of 482 households that were selected using random sampling
techniques. The data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire (USDA 18-Question
Household Food Security Questionnaire Module). Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means and
standard deviation were employed in the analysis of the data. The results obtained from the study show that
the prevalence of food security (26 per cent) in teachers’ households in both Lagos and Ibadan was low and
the food security status of the teachers’ household in Lagos was better (p<0.05) than of households in
Ibadan. The results of the study also identified income status and the educational status of the household
head to influence the food security in those households. A household food insecurity of over 70% in this study
is unacceptably high