Food insecurity among college students
By Gabriela Martinez
It’s Wednesday at 7:00 a.m. and Alexis Hermansen is heading down to the dining hall to eat breakfast before heading out to class. When she enters the dining hall, she finds that there are not enough healthy options as she’d like there to be. So, she decides to eat chicken.
“There definitely isn’t as much (healthy options) as I like. Since there isn’t, I really don’t try to go to the dining hall that often,” Hermansen said.
Once she starts her day, she finds herself busy and forgets to eat dinner. This is often a problem for her throughout the school year. Hermansen is usually distracted with work and tends to skip breakfast and dinner.
When she has time to eat, she decides to eat fast food because it’s the cheapest and quickest option for her.
“I just don’t have that time in the day to be definitely taking fourteen times in my week to go in grab breakfast (and) sit down,” Hermansen said.
Karysa Horst is another student at ASU who suffers from food insecurity.
"I usually skip lunch on the weekdays just because I’m so busy with school that I forget," Horst said.
Eating healthy “is not convenient and I just eat whatever is accessible (to) me and what’s easy to make or close by,” Horst said.
Many students are struggling with not having enough money and time, which is affecting the way they eat.
The Hunger in Higher Education: Experiences and Correlates of Food Insecurity among Wisconsin Undergraduates from Low-Income Families article, found that out of the “traditional-age students from low-income families” they researched, “ 1 in 3 are cutting or skipping meals, eating less than they should and going without food due to limited resources.”
According to the same article, “Students explain that challenges stemming from the interrelationship of lack of time and inadequate money are their biggest barriers to food security.”
In the same article it mentioned that, “Specifically, 70% reported that they do “not have enough time to eat because of a busy schedule”, but there is significant variation in self-reported challenges among those with the lowest levels of food security. Females, those who are currently employed, and four-year college students were especially likely to indicate that they “do not have enough time to eat because of a busy schedule.”
In the academic journal, Factors Related to the High Rates of Food Insecurity among Diverse, Urban College Freshmen, the study concluded that, “College students have a reputation for engaging in unhealthy eating habits. These habits may reflect, in part, choices based on barriers to healthier eating, including lack of consistent access to affordable, nutritious food.”
Christy Alexon is a Clinical Associate Professor of Nutrition at ASU.
"They’ve actually done studies to show that it’s harder to encode information when you’re under a lot of stress. Food insecurity…is going to make it harder for (students) to learn and be successful," Alexon said. “When you are food insecure you kind of have to take whatever you can get and sometimes it’s not always the healthiest food. That can impact your long-term health."
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Many universities are tackling food insecurity in college by opening on campus pantries and by having other resources available to students.
At Arizona State University, there is a pantry called the Pitchfork Pantry, which is an organization that helps ASU students who face food insecurity. The pantry provides students with canned goods. They are located at the Tempe and downtown Phoenix campus.
Madeleine Ordiway is the executive director of the downtown Phoenix Pitchfork Pantry. Ordiway says that ““the pantry’s mission is to… be a direct response and address to food insecurity here on campus.”
“We help other students who wish to donate food and help connect them to students who need the food.” She also says that the pantry is there to “provid(e) physical food for (ASU students) on the spot.”
Students can visit the pantry as many times as they want.
The Pitchfork Pantry hopes to expand to other campuses.
Hannah Rater is the co-executive director of the Student Anti-Hunger Coalition and the executive director of the downtown Phoenix Pitchfork Pantry.
“With the Anti-Hunger Coalition more of the mission…is to expand not just from the pantry but helping students out with other resources and implementing programs such as the Swipe out Hunger Program and campus kitchens,” Rater said. “(The Student Anti-Hunger Coalition) works more with the university just on bringing other projects to help fight food insecurity at ASU.”
The Student Anti-Hunger Coalition works closely with the Pitchfork Pantry.
“The Student Anti-Hunger Coalition overseas the Pitchfork Pantry, so they’re their own separate works but we work together for pretty much everything,” Rater said. “The pantry is just one of our ways that we are trying to fight food insecurity, but they’re both very well intertwined.”
Photo by Gabriela Martinez | The downtown Phoenix Pitchfork Pantry is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
