“I Cannot Afford Lunch”: How Students’ Narratives of Food Insecurity Reveal Difficulties and Coping Strategies Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Community college students may become more vulnerable to food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may eventually impact their health, shape their interpretations of food insecurity and injustice within their lives, and cause them to reevaluate the support that they need from their community college. This study analyzes the food security experiences of 1,278 students during the semester before and first year of the pandemic using survey measures and narrative methodology. While students’ reported levels of food insecurity did not increase after the start of the pandemic, students reported feeling less embarrassment about and greater likelihood of using food support programs. After the pandemic began, students reflected on their food security experiences in different ways. They became more likely to focus on the wellbeing of fellow students, advocate for campus food support programs, and highlight financial and nutritional problems that relate to food insecurity. They also became less likely to judge their community college for possible failures in supporting food insecure students. These changes suggested that the pandemic impacted students’ understanding of food insecurity and related support programs and perhaps made students be less judgmental and more open-minded about how their college institution can support food insecure students. These findings offer implications for why and how community colleges should support food insecure students.

Plain Language Summary

Even before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, community college students often struggled with food insecurity – the state of not having access to enough nutritious, affordable, and culturally appropriate food to lead a healthy life. The pandemic may have caused them to become more food insecure in ways that may hurt their health, alter their use of food support programs, and change their beliefs about food insecurity. This study reviews the food-related experiences of 1,278 students during the semester before and first year of the pandemic using surveys and narrative writing prompts. While students did not become more food insecure after the start of the pandemic, they reported feeling less embarrassment about and more use of food support programs. Students also became more likely to focus on the wellbeing of fellow students, advocate for campus food support programs, and highlight financial and nutritional problems that relate to food insecurity. They also became less likely to judge their community college for possible failures in supporting food insecure students. These changes suggested that over the course of the pandemic, students became more aware of food insecurity, more open to using food support programs on and off campus, and more open-minded about how their college institution can support students. These findings imply that it would be wise for community colleges to understand more about their students’ struggles with food. Once community colleges understand more about students’ needs, colleges can offer targeted support to food insecure students.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this research study was provided by the Professional Staff Congress and Research Foundation of the City University of New York under Award #TRADA-52-224.