Kevin Dillenburg

12/7/17
ENGL1001
Godbee
No Meal In Sight: Food Insecurity Among Colleges

Being hungry is a terrible feeling. No one likes their stomach growling like a caged lion

for food, as it slowly collapses in on itself from lack of digestion. Sadly, constantly being

hungry is some peoples reality, especially those with lower incomes. However, the word food

insecurity has began to take a public hold. Food insecurity is defined as the state of being

without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food by Oxford

Dictionaries. Once again, this applies to people with lower incomes, but recently this has also

begun to apply to college students. Its never a good thing when someone doesnt know where

their next meal is coming from, but its even worse when that person is part of the future of this

world and can have a meaningful and fulfilling life in their future. The fact that some of these

people are concerned that they wont get their next meal is appalling. Whether a college student

has food insecurity or not leads to how they decide to spend their money on food.

This last part is where my research question comes into play. My question is, What is

the most valuable way a college student can spend money on food?, so researching food

insecurity has a big role in this because it is a big factor in how people decide to spend money on

food. People with major food insecurity will spend far less, potentially if any at all, money on

food than someone like me who knows Ill always have a meal waiting, allowing me to freely

spend some money on some delicious Popeyes chicken with basically no consequences. For this

reason, college student food spending may be polarized, but that remains to be seen. What we

can research as of now is how prevalent food insecurity is at college, which is an issue multiple

sources have discussed.

The first source for this academic conversation is an article describing research conducted

for Food insecurity prevalence among college students at the University of Hawaii at Manoa

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(2009) and was written by M Pia Chaparro, Sahar S Zaghloul, Peter Holck, and Joannie Dobbs.

The second source for this academic conversation is Prevalence and Correlates of Food

Insecurity Among Students Attending a Midsize Rural University in Oregon (2014) and was

written by Megan M. Patton-Lopez, Daniel F. Lopez-Cevallos, Doris I. Cancel-Tirado, and

Leticia Vazquez. Finally, the third source of this academic conversation is Alisha Gaines,

Clifford A. Robb, Linda L. Knol, and Stephanie Sicklers Examining the role of financial

factors, resources and skills in predicting food security status among college students (2014).

All three of these sources find different variables that lead to food insecurity, but all find it is

extremely prevalent in college students and needs to be fixed, possibly with food banks or

student gardens.

Chaparro et al defines food insecurity as Exists when there is limited or uncertain

availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire

acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways. They collected data by doing a cross-sectional

survey of 441 non-freshman students from 31 randomly selected classrooms at the University of

Hawaii at Manoa. They also included the USDAs Household Food Security Survey Module

and demographic and spending variables. The surveys results show that 21% of students

surveyed were food-insecure, while 24% were at risk of food insecurity. This rate is far higher

than the rate of food insecurity found in all Hawaii households of 7.8%. This rate is also much,

much more than the 10.9% rate of food insecurity of 116 million U.S. households that was found

in 2006. Both of these numbers were collected by the Department of Public Health Sciences at

the University of Hawaii at Manoa. They found that this rate is even higher with certain groups,

as those who live on campus, live off campus with a roommate, and those who identify as

Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Filipino, or mixed were all at an even higher risk of being food

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insecure. From this data, the surveyors form the University of Hawaii at Manoa concluded that,

Food insecurity is a significant problem among college students at the University of Hawaii at

Manoa. Food availability and accessibility should be increased for these students through the

establishment of in-campus food banks and student gardens. Future studies should assess the

prevalence of food insecurity in other college campus nationwide. Looking at the data myself, I

completely agree that food insecurity is a major problem at the university considering the rest of

Hawaii is substantially less at risk of food insecurity. It is very interesting to see that Hawaiians

are still more at risk of having food insecurity even when at their own state university. This

absolutely baffles me and Im not sure what to make of it other than that Hawaiians are so much

poorer than other ethnicities that they arent even well-off in their own state, which I simply do

not believe. I dont doubt the data they collected, especially considering they conducted the

research in the same state as they attend school, but it is certainly an intriguing statistic to see. I

do agree that food banks and student gardens sound like good ideas to decrease this very high

rate of food insecurity at the university. Improving the quality and diversity of the dining halls is

something else they could also try to do.

The second source, Prevalence and Correlates of Food Insecurity Among Students

Attending a Midsize Rural University in Oregon (2014), uses the same definition of food

insecurity as Chaparro et al, which makes comparing the twos results far easier. Their survey

design was one that was cross-sectional (same as Chaparro et al), 40-item sent via e-mail to all

students attending a midsize rural university in western Oregon during May, 2011. In total, 354

students completed the survey, which included questions about, relevant factors associated with

food insecurity among university students, as well as credit card debt, employment, and

financial aid. This survey also used the USDA Food Security Survey Module, the same one

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Chaparro et al used. Since it was a 40-item survey, loads of data was collected, although not all

of it relevant. The rate of food insecurity they found on campus was 59%. Yes, 59, almost triple

that of the University of Hawaii at Manoas and six times the national average found by Hawaii-

Manoa. This is an absurd rate, but digging deeper into the numbers can help. For example,

88.4% of all food insecure students have at least some credit card debt, with 17.2% having more

than $500 in debt. This is a clear indicator of how crippling credit card debt can be and how it

can damage ones simple ability to eat. While Chaparro et als survey did not give numbers on

how at-risk students are that live off campus with roommates, this university did, and found that

34.8% of those living off-campus with a roommate have food insecurity. Living on campus,

another situation mentioned as at-risk by Chaparro et al, shows a 29.4% food insecurity rate in

this survey. While these numbers are decently high, itd be a stretch to call them determining

risk factors, and even the analysis in the research doesnt mention it as one of the three primary

contributors. The three mentioned were having fair/poor health, being employed, and having an

income <$15,000/yr. I think fair/poor health is a poor observation because I think the students

have poor health because they have food insecurity, not the other way around. However, I think

the employment observation can make sense when put up against logic. If a student has a lower

income, they will likely try to find a job on campus to help their lacking amount of funds, which

they can then spend on food. This leads into their third observation, which also makes sense

because less income means less money for food, leading to food insecurity. Having an income

of less than $15,000 lead to a 78.5% chance of being food insecure, which follows the logic

previously stated. I agree that income, or lack thereof, is a clear contributor of food insecurity,

but I also think the researchers overlooked credit card debt as a major cause, which can affect

both the rich and the poor. This survey actually mentions the survey from Hawaii-Manoa, but

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says some strange things about it. The current study found that the prevalence of food

insecurity (59%) among a sample of college students attending a midsize rural university in

Oregon was higher than that of the general population (15%), or even other college student

populations (eg, 39% among students at the City University of New York; 45% among students

at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa). (Patton-Lopez) This statement is very strange because,

despite using the same definitions for food insecurity, this research group somehow interpreted

Chaparro et als numbers to say that 45% of its students had food insecurity. The only way this

is possible is if they add both the food insecure students (21%) and those at risk of having food

insecurity (24%), but this still wouldnt make sense to use the combined number to only talk

about those that actually have food insecurity. For this reason, I now begin to think their number

of 58% is a combination of those at risk and those who have food insecurity, even if both surveys

used the same definition. This doesnt really change any of the factors because those

percentages were taken as a part of those who said they had food insecurity, but the big, final

number seems to be off. In any case, both the researchers and I agree that food insecurity seems

to be a major problem, especially at this university, and that it is necessary to expand research

on different campus settings and further strengthen support systems to increase access to

nutritious foods for this population.

Finally, Alisha Gaines, Clifford A. Robb, Linda L. Knol, and Stephanie Sicklers

Examining the role of financial factors, resources and skills in predicting food security status

among college students (2014) defines food insecurity the same way the first two sources do,

once again making it easier to draw comparisons between the sources. These researchers

collected data from a sample pool of sophomore, junior, and senior classes from the fall course

catalogue from September to November 2011 at the University of Alabama. Gaines et al

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mentions that they purposely excluded freshman just like Chaparro et al did. Gaines et als final

rate for food insecurity was 14.06% which is on-par with both Chaparro et als numbers and the

national average. The variables Gaines et al claimed had the biggest impact on this number

were, financial independence, familial financial support, receipts of financial or food assistance,

budgeting behaviors, credit card ownership and exogenous shock. These all seem to check out,

as those with no familial financial support have a 41.38% food insecurity rate, which makes

sense in logic. It is much easier to not have money for and stress about food if your family

provides no help. Both Chaparro et al and I agree with this. Students at risk for food insecurity

were financially independent and were not receiving any form of financial support from family

members. Chaparro et al. (2009) also reported that financially independent students were more

likely to be food insecure. While the 14.06% rate found it fairly average on the national scale,

it is still above said average and shows food insecurity is still clearly a problem at universities.

Although the three sources had slightly different means of doing research, such as

including or not including freshman, and found some different factors that affect food insecurity,

all three, no matter the rate, found that food insecurity was a major problem among universities

and is something that should be solved at a high priority. Chaparro et al recommended both

more food banks and student gardens, and both ideas, along with improved dining halls, would

greatly benefit those suffering from something no human, but especially children of the future,

should have to: hunger.

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12/7/17
ENGL1001
Godbee
Works Cited
Chaparro, M Pia, et al. Food Insecurity Prevalence among College Students at the University of
Hawai'i at Manoa. ProQuest, Nov. 2009, search.proquest.com/docview/223085375?pq-
origsite=gscholar.
Gaines, Alisha, et al. Examining the Role of Financial Factors, Resources and Skills in Predicting
Food Security Status among College Students. Wiley Online Library, International Journal of
Consumer Studies, 21 July 2014, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijcs.12110/full.
Patton-Lopez, Megan M., et al. Prevalence and Correlates of Food Insecurity Among Students
Attending a Midsize Rural University in Oregon. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior,
Elsevier, 2014, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1499404613007070.

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