Navigating Hidden Hunger: An Exploratory Analysis of the Lived Experience of Food Insecurity among College Students
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Population
2.2. Data Collection
2.3. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. The Meaning and Lived Experience of FI (Table 2)
3.1.1. Meaning of FI for Students and Perceived Definitions
Theme | Subtheme | Sample Quote |
---|---|---|
Meaning of FI for students | Feeling of uncertainty and lack of control | “I feel like food insecurity to me is not knowing when you would truly have a meal again beyond just a bite or two if you even get that. And the struggle of figuring out if you’d have the money or the means and everything that goes into achieving getting the food. Like, that process, the struggle of doing that. If you’re struggling, I feel like that’s insecurity enough for me” (female undergraduate student) |
Short term sacrifice for long term gain | “If it came up, I would be willing to sacrifice food security to continue education, you know, for the degree at the end to make things better. So I can see a lot of students who might not be able to afford food, but are unwilling to sacrifice their academics to find better employment” (male undergraduate student) | |
Impact of FI on lived experiences | Compromised mental and physical health | “When I am eating the things I should to help me feel good, I can tell the difference because I slept better and felt more energized. I had better energy to do some of the workload of the research. But now I feel like I have less energy and am tired. And I feel like a big part of that is what I’m eating” (female undergraduate student) |
Feelings of isolation from limited social interactions | “I’m not as social as I could be if I had money to go out to eat with friends and to hang out that way. And even like having people over to eat or cooking for them, that also becomes like a scarcity thing, where like I’m sort of like hoarding my food because I can’t afford to host” (female graduate student) | |
Impact of FI on coping strategies and food decisions | Skipping meals as a matter of necessity | “I’m just trying to make my meals stretch. So, like twice a day, instead of like three times, I will skip lunch or something. Just so that I can stretch the food I have longer because I know how much I have with my budget and how long it’s going to stretch to and I need it to stretch until I get paid again. (female undergraduate student) |
Fear of running out of food influences food purchasing and preparation behaviors | “And though I’ll order like one thing, I’ll normally like eat half of it and save it the other half for the next day. So I’m even like rationing this like one meal that I’ll get from them, so that it will be actually two meals” (gender queer graduate student) |
3.1.2. Impact of FI on Students’ Lived Experiences
3.1.3. Impact of FI on Coping Strategies and Food Decisions
3.2. Facilitators and Barriers to Students’ Food Access (Table 3)
3.2.1. Social Networks Facilitate Food Access
Theme | Subtheme | Sample Quote |
---|---|---|
Social networks facilitate food access | N/A | “Because I have roommates and they buy food, then if I don’t have any food they’re like you can just eat whatever I have, because their parents give them money to go to the store and everything. And I will say I need to wait till my next paycheck and go to the store and get more food” (female undergraduate student) |
Impact of on-campus resources | N/A | “The [on-campus pantry] is very encouraged, and I like that it’s now permeating the discourse on campus. They are recognizing “Hey, we have food insecure students. Here are the resources for you.” instead of just like, you know, shoving it under the rug or tucking it aside. So these issues are talked about. I think that invites me to feel more confident about using these resources on campus” (female undergraduate student) |
Financial burden and priority of expenses | Food is the last priority over other student expenses | “Would I rather be hungry or homeless? Would I rather be hungry or hit my credit score X amount of points? You know, for people like me, I’m a young adult. I have my family, but we have dreams. We want to like get a house at some point, like do better and you can’t do those things if you have horrible credit or, you know, other things, financially, that are wrong. And so you have to make these really tough choices that usually end up always trickling down to affecting how you eat” (male graduate student) |
Scholarships, financial aid, and employment do not cover the basics | “I think a lot of the issue in general just tends to be that for a lot of students, college is extremely expensive, especially if you’re coming from a lower income family. Some scholarships just do not extend enough. And there’s also the issue that a lot of jobs are not available first. Like you need to have access to a car, and a lot of on campus jobs do not really pay enough. They’re like $8.25 an hour which is not very much, and you can only work 20 h a week on campus as a student. And it can be very difficult for people to make ends meet on $8.25, an hour, 20 h a week” (gender queer undergraduate student) | |
Stigma and social comparison | Feeling ashamed of using resources or seeking help | “I think maybe just from like a peer standpoint, they see somebody in like a random class of theirs or something and they’re like, oh, they think I’m poor now or like, I don’t have any money or my parents don’t have any money just don’t have any money to like send me for food and stuff like that, um, yeah, I mean I guess that’s probably how I felt at first” (female undergraduate student) |
Comparison to others perceived to be worse off | “I won’t utilize that just because you know, I can go, you know, a meal or two without food and be okay. But there are people out there who literally don’t know how they’re going to eat and are way worse off. So I absolutely don’t want to take away from anyone else” (female undergraduate student) |
3.2.2. Impact of On-Campus Resources
3.2.3. Financial Burden and Priorities Posed a Barrier to Food Access
3.2.4. Stigma Acts as a Barrier to Accessing Food
3.3. Solutions for Addressing Food Insecurity (Table 4)
3.3.1. Food Access Solutions
Theme | Sub Theme | Sample Quote |
---|---|---|
Food access solutions | Food scholarship | “If financial aid were to give students money for groceries of some sort, since a part of education is also to make sure we have food to eat, I think it would be nice… If there was like a guaranteed stipend that college students are going to receive X amount of money for groceries” (gender queer graduate student) |
Financial assistance for housing and other basic needs | “Financial resources were huge for me, so that would be what I would feel is most helpful. Because I was homeless, at one point… So more knowledge about like social services and housing for students in distress would be huge because I might not be here having this conversation right now if I didn’t have a friend to take me in and let me finish my undergrad” (female graduate student) | |
Increasing access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) | “I think that maybe some seminars on how to connect students with social services that they need like SNAP… things like that would be really useful. Maybe having some event or something with some sort of takeaway card or seminar to be like here are things that you can do to improve your situation and here’s how to access them” (male graduate student) | |
Information access solutions | Education on nutrition, budgeting, and cooking | “I would want more things online for budgeting and meal planning. Because it took a long time for me to figure out how to meal plan appropriately. And I feel like a lot of students, even if they are in hardship, find it really hard to figure that out” (female undergraduate student) |
Centralizing and educating about resources | “We need a service online to help students find scholarships and grants and things like that. If there was a service that could narrow the many resources down to the things you’re eligible for and this is what you need to do to apply for it, that kind of thing would help save time and money” (male undergraduate student) | |
Destigmatizing and increasing awareness of FI | “It helped me having this kind of interview and these questions on this specific topic of food insecurity of the students on the campus, because from my standpoint, I thought that this was just my problem at first. But when I saw this kind of topic happen, I feel like it’s not only me that has this problem happen, its also like other students too, its kind of good to know many of us have this kind of situation” (female undergraduate student) |
3.3.2. Information Access Solutions
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
- “What types of things do you think of when deciding what food to buy?”
- “Can you tell me a little bit about your food situation since becoming a college student?”
- “Tell me about your relationship with food.”
- “Do you ever worry about running out of money for food? If so, can you tell me a little about what that is like?”
- “How have your buying and eating patterns changed since becoming a college student at UT?”
- “Have you ever run out of food and didn’t have money to buy more? If so, how did you navigate that?”
- “How does the cost of living, including tuition, housing and meal plan, supplies, etc., impact your access to food?”
- “Do you ever skip meals? If so, why?”
- “How do you feel like your food situation impacts your college experience?”
- “What would be your definition of food insecurity in your own words?”
- “What additional resources would you like to have on campus?”
- “As a student, what types of things do you feel like you need additional support for?”
- “What do you suggest to address some of the food situations you mentioned and other students with similar experiences?”
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Variable | n (%) |
---|---|
Age (Mean ± SD) | 26.8 ± 7.92 |
Race/ethnicity | |
White/Caucasian | 21 (70%) |
Black or African American | 3 (10%) |
Hispanic | 3 (10%) |
American Indian/Alaskan Native | 1 (3%) |
Asian American | 1 (3%) |
Gender | |
Female | 21 (70%) |
Male | 7 (23%) |
Other | 2 (6%) |
Academic status | |
Undergraduate | 17 (56%) |
Graduate | 13 (43%) |
Residency status | |
On-campus | 3 (10%) |
Off-campus | 27 (90%) |
Financial aid usage | |
Yes | 24 (80%) |
No | 6 (20%) |
Meal plan usage | |
Yes | 8 (26%) |
No | 22 (73%) |
Food security status 1 | |
Low food security | 18 (60%) |
Very low food security | 12 (40%) |
First generation status 2 | |
Yes | 12 (54%) |
No | 10 (45%) |
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Anderson, A.; Lazarus, J.; Anderson Steeves, E. Navigating Hidden Hunger: An Exploratory Analysis of the Lived Experience of Food Insecurity among College Students. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 12952. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912952
Anderson A, Lazarus J, Anderson Steeves E. Navigating Hidden Hunger: An Exploratory Analysis of the Lived Experience of Food Insecurity among College Students. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(19):12952. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912952
Chicago/Turabian StyleAnderson, Ashlyn, Jacqueline Lazarus, and Elizabeth Anderson Steeves. 2022. "Navigating Hidden Hunger: An Exploratory Analysis of the Lived Experience of Food Insecurity among College Students" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 19: 12952. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912952