Tag: Food

  • The high costs of cheap food

    The high costs of cheap food

    From New York to Jakarta, the scene is the same: Shelves overflowing with cheap, ultra-processed snacks and sugary drinks have become the new normal for millions of children. As a result, for the first time in history, more children are obese than underweight.

    UNICEF’s new Feeding Profit report explains why: Across the globe, cheap and intensely marketed ultra-processed foods dominate what families are able to put on the table, while nutritious options remain out of reach.

    Across the world, one in 20 children under five and one in five children and adolescents aged five to 19 are overweight. The number of overweight children and teens in 2000 almost doubled by 2022, with South Asia experiencing an increase of almost 500%. In East Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, the increase was at least 10%.

    Ultra-processed foods and beverages, defined as industrially formulated, are composed primarily of chemically-modified substances extracted from foods, together with additives and preservatives to enhance taste, texture and appearance as well as shelf life.

    These foods — which are often cheaper, nutrient poor and higher in sugar, unhealthy fats and salt — are now more prevalent than traditional, nutritious foods in children’s diets.

    Can we wean ourselves off ultra-processed foods?

    Studies show there’s a direct link between eating a lot of ultra-processed foods and an increased risk of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. Among teens aged 15-19 years, 60% consumed more than one sugary food or beverage during the previous day, 32% consumed a soft drink and 25% consumed more than one salty processed food.

    Today, children’s paths to healthy eating are shaped less by personal choice than by the food environments that surround them. Those are the places where and conditions under which people make decisions about what to eat. They connect a person’s daily life with the broader food system around them, and are shaped by physical, political, economic and cultural factors that help determine what foods are available, affordable, appealing and regularly eaten.

    Such environments are steering children toward ultra-processed, calorie-dense options, even when healthier foods are available.

    Around the world, countries are beginning to push back. In Mexico, where nearly four million children aged 4-10 are obese, the government took a bold step in March 2025. It banned the sale of ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks in schools.

    The new rules go beyond restriction: Schools must offer fresh, regional foods such as fruits, vegetables and seeds, promote water as the default beverage, and establish health education programs. The policy also calls for regular health monitoring, mandatory fortification of wheat and corn flours, and more opportunities for physical activity, with penalties for schools that fail to comply.

    Taking steps to slim down our diets

    In September 2025, Malaysia’s Ministry of Education followed similar steps. It now prohibits 12 categories of ultra-processed foods and drinks in school canteens, from instant noodles and skewered snacks to frozen desserts and candy.

    But even as countries rewrite their food policies, millions of families still face difficult choices at the market.

    Shauna Downs, associate professor of food policy and public health nutrition at Rutgers University, has seen firsthand how hunger and obesity can coexist within the same communities in her research on informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya.

    “People are able to find nutrient-rich foods, like leafy greens, fruits, and vegetables, and animal-source foods, but they’re often expensive, and what they can get that’s cheaper is things like mandazi [fried dough], which provide energy, and they taste good, but they’re not getting the nutrients they need,” she said.

    Families that want to buy the nutrient-rich foods are forced into heartbreaking choices, Downs said.

    “So now they’re making a decision between ‘Am I gonna buy this food from the market, which my family needs, or am I gonna pay for my child to go to school?’” she said.

    Looking at food environments

    By spotlighting the food environment, consumers and researchers alike can move past the tired “eat less, move more” narrative to fight childhood obesity and ask a better question: Why wasn’t the healthy plate the obvious, easy and most affordable choice in the first place?

    Long before ultra-processed foods flooded grocery shelves, they quietly took over another key part of children’s lives: school cafeterias. Back in 1981, the Reagan administration cut US$1.5 billion in U.S. school food funding, pushing public institutions to rely on convenience over nutrition.

    Pamela Koch, associate professor of nutrition and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, said that one of the things cut was for funding for schools  upgrade their kitchens.

    “That was the same time as the food supply was becoming more and more [saturated] with highly-processed food, and a lot of food companies realized, ‘Wait, we could have a market selling to schools. Schools don’t have money to buy supplies’,” Koch said.

    Companies began offering deals: Sign a long-term contract and receive a free convection oven to reheat ultra-processed foods. For schools facing budget cuts and limited staffing, the decision was simple. The cost of that convenience would echo for decades.

    Let’s start with school meals.

    The nonprofit Global Child Nutrition Foundation, highlights school meals as an essential lever for transforming food systems: Create demand for nutritious foods, improve the livelihoods of those working in the food system and promote climate-smart foods. However, the cost of scaling up national programs depends on the strength of supply chains, underlying food markets, logistics and procurement models.

    Countries that depend on imported food, already challenged by infrastructure and expensive trading costs, will face additional challenges in delivering healthy school meals.

    In much of the world, climate stress and weak infrastructure are making nutritious food both more difficult to grow and more expensive to purchase.

    Small-scale farmers, sheep and cattle farmers, forest keepers and fishers — known collectively as smallholder farmers — grow much of the food in low-income countries. They face worsening yields due to climate change, land degradation and lack of access to the technology and resources that support sustainable food production.

    At the same time perishable foods are becoming more expensive because the global supply chain — how food gets shipped from a farm in one country through distribution networks to store shelves in another country — is increasingly threatened by political tension, the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

    Durability over nutrition

    Kate Schneider, assistant professor of sustainable food systems at Arizona State University, said that smallholder farmers grow food as their livelihood. “They’re not able to grow enough food, which is partly a story of climate change,” Schneider said. “Multiple generations now have been farming … year after year on the same land, but without external inputs –– fertilizers and modern, high-yielding seeds –– they are resulting in very low yields.”

    Even when fresh fruits and vegetables are available, logistical barriers make it easier to sell ultra-processed foods. Fresh produce is heavy, vulnerable to spoilage and expensive to move, especially in countries with poor transport networks.

    “When we’re thinking about fresh items, they’re perishable, and they need a cold chain,” Schneider said. “You’re paying, when you buy an apple, for the three that also rotted.”

    Meanwhile, ultra-processed products like soda avoid this problem entirely: “It’s cheaper for them to have a ton of different bottling plants around countries than to distribute long distances,” Schneider said.

    The result of these challenges is a global system that rewards durability over nutrition and continues to make healthy food increasingly out of reach.

    Connecting sustainability of diets and the environment

    The EAT-Lancet Commission 2.0, a scientific body redefining healthy and sustainable diets, offers a different view: The ultra-processed foods fuelling obesity are also pushing food systems beyond climate and biodiversity limits.

    Its newly published report says that nearly half the world’s population can’t afford a healthy diet, while the richest 30% generate more than 70% of food-related environmental damage.

    The planetary health diet suggests a plant-rich diet that consists of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and beans, with only moderate or small amounts of fish, dairy and meat.

    To build healthier and more just food systems, experts also recommend a whole list of other things: make nutritious diets more accessible and affordable; protect traditional diets; promote sustainable farming and ecosystems; reduce food waste.

    And all of this should be done with the participation of diverse sectors of the society.

    The responsibility of transforming food systems falls not only on governments but also on donors and financial partners, development and humanitarian organizations, academic institutions and civil society. The stakes are high, but so is the potential to change. With bold, coordinated action, the next generation of children can be nourished by healthy food, while building food systems that sustain both people and the planet. 

    Questions to consider:

    1. How is obesity connected to the environment?

    2. What are some governments doing to try to tackle the obesity crisis?

    3. What changes could you make to your diet to make it healthier?

     

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  • Trump Throws “Great Gatsby” Party at Mar-a-Lago as Food Stamps End for Millions (Democracy Now!)

    Trump Throws “Great Gatsby” Party at Mar-a-Lago as Food Stamps End for Millions (Democracy Now!)







    Higher Education Inquirer : Trump Throws “Great Gatsby” Party at Mar-a-Lago as Food Stamps End for Millions (Democracy Now!)




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  • ‘The clock is ticking’: Shutdown imperils food, child care for many

    ‘The clock is ticking’: Shutdown imperils food, child care for many

    For families in more than a hundred Head Start programs across the country, November could mark the beginning of some hard decisions.

    On Saturday, 134 Head Start centers serving 58,400 children would normally receive their annual federal funding, but the ongoing government shutdown has put that money in jeopardy. The federally funded Head Start provides free preschool and child care for low-income families, and is particularly important to rural communities with few other child care options. 

    At the same time, the federal government has said that because of the shutdown, it cannot distribute Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits that families also expect on the first of the month. Plus, a program that provides extra money for families to buy milk, baby formula, and fruit and vegetables is also running out of $300 million in emergency funding provided to it earlier this month.

    Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues. 

    All this means low-income families are facing upheaval on multiple fronts, said Christy Gleason, the vice president of policy, advocacy and campaigns for the nonprofit group Save the Children. Families in Head Start often receive other federal benefits, so they could simultaneously be facing a disruption in child care — and the meals provided there — and public food assistance.

    “You’re going to end up with parents and caregivers who are skipping meals themselves, because that’s the way they put food on the table for their kids,” Gleason said. Save the Children manages Head Start programs in rural Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee, but its programs are not among those affected by the Nov. 1 annual funding deadline. Head Start has 1,600 programs that receive their yearly funding throughout the calendar year.

    There are still a few days left to avert the crisis, Gleason said. More than two dozen states are suing the government to force it to use a pot of money that had been set aside for paying SNAP benefits in an emergency. President Donald Trump also said this week that the food aid situation would be fixed, but didn’t offer details. Federal lawmakers have also introduced different proposals to keep food assistance money flowing. A handful of states said they will continue to pay for the supplemental milk and formula program, known as WIC. Head Start programs may be able to tap local money, but that isn’t expected to last long. 

    “The clock is ticking,” Gleason said. “Every hour that goes by is an hour where the stress for these families grows, but it’s not too late for government action to change course and make sure children are not the ones to suffer the consequences of political decisions.”

    New data quantifies child care gaps

    Nearly 15 million ages 5 and under in the United States have “all available parents” — both adults in a two-parent household, or one if the child has one adult caregiver — in the workforce. The country has about 11 million licensed or registered child care slots.

    That leaves about 4 million children whose families may need child care — a hard-to-grasp number that obscures the fact that some parts of the country may have greater needs than other regions because child care providers are concentrated in some areas and sparse in others.

    The Buffett Early Childhood Institute, based at the University of Nebraska, is trying to address that problem. It has created a map that it says will give a more accurate view of where child care is needed the most, down to the congressional district. 

    The map captures the number of children with working parents and the number of available spots in licensed child care. What it cannot capture is demand — not every family needs child care, even families with parents in the workforce — but the map does allow policymakers a starting place for a more nuanced evaluation of their community’s needs.

    “We know the limitations of the data, but we also know in order to address the gap, this needs to be broken down into bite-sized pieces,” said Linda Smith, director of policy at the Buffett Institute.

    This story about the government shutdown was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Food: The one thing everyone needs

    Food: The one thing everyone needs

    On World Food Day we present you with a smorgasbord of stories to consume to show how food and the need to eat connects us all.

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  • Students Lose Food Benefits Between High School and College

    Students Lose Food Benefits Between High School and College

    Fewer than half of low-income students retain their state food benefits in the transition from high school to college or the workforce, even though they might still be eligible, according to a new report from the California Policy Lab, a nonpartisan research group affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA.

    The report, released today, drew on data from 2010 to 2022 from five state agency partners: the California Departments of Education and Social Services, the California Student Aid Commission, the University of California Office of the President and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. It found that only 47 percent of high school seniors who participated in CalFresh were still enrolled in the state food assistance program two years after graduation.

    “That’s a significant drop-off, and our goal is to shed some light on the causes of that drop-off and if there are ways to address it,” co-author Jesse Rothstein, professor of public policy and economics at UC Berkeley and the faculty director of the California Policy Lab’s UC Berkeley site, said in a news release.

    Researchers estimated that 40 percent of those students were no longer eligible for CalFresh because of specific eligibility requirements for college students. But the remaining 60 percent were likely eligible.

    Researchers also found disparities in which students maintained their CalFresh benefits. Students who participated in CalFresh for longer in high school were more likely to continue to participate afterward. Students who attended University of California campuses were also more likely to continue participating in CalFresh than those attending community colleges. The report suggests this is because community college students are more likely to live at home with their parents, whose incomes are factored into the eligibility for CalFresh, which can prevent them from meeting the program’s income requirements.

    Some community college students, including Hispanic and Filipino students, were less likely than their peers to continue receiving food benefits. The report recommended targeted outreach to these students to help them stay enrolled in the program.

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  • US Department of Education’s Failure to Address Food Insecurity Among College Students (Government Accountability Office)

    US Department of Education’s Failure to Address Food Insecurity Among College Students (Government Accountability Office)

    Nearly 25% of college students in 2020 reported
    limited or uncertain access to food. Despite being potentially eligible,
    most didn’t receive Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP)
    benefits—formerly known as “food stamps”—which could help them pay for
    food.

    A recent law gave the Department of Education
    authority to share students’ Free Application for Federal Student Aid
    data with federal and state SNAP agencies to identify and help students
    who may be eligible for benefits.

    But Education hasn’t made a plan to start sharing this data—nor have states received guidance about this opportunity.

    We recommended ways to address these issues.

    What GAO Found

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of
    Education have taken some steps to connect college students with
    Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to help them
    pay for food, but gaps in planning and execution remain. Effective July
    2024, a new law gave Education authority to share students’ Free
    Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) data with USDA and state
    SNAP agencies to conduct student outreach and streamline benefit
    administration. However, according to officials, Education had not yet
    developed a plan to implement these complex data-sharing arrangements.
    This risks delays in students getting important information that could
    help them access benefits they are eligible for. Following the passage
    of this new law, Education began providing a notification about federal
    benefit programs for students who may be eligible for them. However, it
    has not evaluated its method for identifying potentially eligible
    students. According to GAO analysis of 2020 Education data, Education’s
    method could miss an estimated 40 percent of potentially SNAP-eligible
    students.

    USDA encouraged state SNAP agencies to enhance student outreach and
    enrollment assistance. However, USDA has not included important
    information about the use of SNAP data and other student data in its
    guidance to state SNAP agencies. These gaps in guidance have left states
    with questions about how to permissibly use and share students’ data to
    help connect them with benefits.

    Student Food Assistance at a College Basic Needs Center

    Officials from the three selected states and seven colleges GAO
    contacted described key strategies for communicating with students about
    their potential SNAP eligibility. These include using destigmatizing
    language, linking students directly to an application or support staff,
    and coordinating outreach efforts with SNAP agencies. Officials from the
    states and colleges GAO contacted said it is helpful to have staff
    available on campus to assist students with the SNAP application. Some
    colleges have found it helpful to partner with their respective SNAP
    agencies to obtain information on the status of students’ applications.

    Why GAO Did This Study

    According to a national survey, almost one-quarter of college
    students were food insecure in 2020, yet GAO found many who were
    potentially eligible for SNAP had not received benefits. The substantial
    federal investment in higher education is at risk of not serving its
    intended purpose if students drop out because of limited or uncertain
    access to food. Studies have found using data to direct outreach to
    those potentially eligible can increase benefit uptake.

    GAO was asked to review college student food insecurity. This report
    addresses (1) the extent to which Education and USDA have supported data
    use to help college students access SNAP benefits, and (2) how selected
    states and colleges have used student data to help connect students
    with SNAP benefits.

    GAO reviewed relevant federal laws and agency documents. GAO also
    interviewed officials from Education, USDA, and national higher
    education and SNAP associations. GAO selected three states and
    interviewed officials from state SNAP and higher education agencies and
    seven colleges in these states. GAO visited one selected state in person
    and interviewed two virtually. States were selected based on actions to
    support food insecure students and stakeholder recommendations.

    Recommendations

    GAO is making five recommendations, including that Education develop a
    plan to implement FAFSA data-sharing and assess its benefit
    notification approach; and that USDA improve its SNAP agency guidance.
    The agencies neither agreed nor disagreed with these recommendations.

    Recommendations for Executive Action

    Agency Affected Recommendation Status
    Department of Education The
    Secretary of Education should develop a written plan for implementing
    provisions in the FAFSA Simplification Act related to sharing FAFSA data
    with SNAP administrators, to aid in benefit outreach and enrollment
    assistance. (Recommendation 1)
    Department of Education The
    Secretary of Education should, in consultation with USDA, evaluate its
    approach to identifying and notifying FAFSA applicants who are
    potentially eligible for SNAP benefits and adjust its approach as
    needed. (Recommendation 2)
    Department of Education The
    Secretary of Education should inform colleges and state higher
    education agencies that FAFSA notifications are being sent to applicants
    who are potentially eligible for SNAP benefits. (Recommendation 3)
    Department of Agriculture The
    Administrator of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service should, in
    consultation with Education, issue guidance to state SNAP agencies—such
    as in its SNAP outreach priority memo—to clarify permissible uses of
    student data, including FAFSA data, for SNAP outreach and enrollment
    assistance. (Recommendation 4)
    Department of Agriculture The
    Administrator of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service should issue
    guidance to state SNAP agencies—such as in its SNAP outreach priority
    memo—to clarify the permissible uses and disclosure of SNAP data to
    support SNAP student outreach and enrollment assistance. (Recommendation
    5)

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  • New Food Security Threats 5 Years After COVID-Era Effort to Feed All Kids – The 74

    New Food Security Threats 5 Years After COVID-Era Effort to Feed All Kids – The 74

    A multi-pronged attack on food aid by Republican lawmakers could mean more of the nation’s children will go hungry — both at home and at school.

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently cut two federal programs that provided roughly $1 billion in funding for the purchase of food by schools and food banks. 

    And the Community Eligibility Provision, which reimburses tens of thousands of schools that provide free breakfast and lunch to all students, may tighten its requirements, potentially pushing some 12 million kids out of the program.

    These moves come at the same time the House Republican budget plan calls for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The program fed more than 42 million low-income people per month nationwide in 2023. In 2022, 40% were younger than 18.  

    This recent shift reflects a stark reversal of earlier, nationwide efforts to keep families fed during the pandemic. Many districts, such as Baltimore, organized grab-and-go meals sites days after schools were shuttered in March 2020 with no identification or personal information required. Those initiatives led to the nation’s food insecurity rate dropping to a 20-year low when it reached 10.2% in 2021, down from a 14.9% high a decade earlier, according to the USDA.

    It has since crept back up to 13.5% and now, five years after schools utilized USDA waivers to deliver meals in innovative ways, they are bracing for what could be massive cuts from the federal government.

    Latoya Roberson, manager at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School in Baltimore (Baltimore City Public Schools) 

    Elizabeth A. Marchetta, executive director of food and nutrition services for Baltimore City Public Schools, said 31 campuses — serving 19,000 children — would lose out on free breakfast and lunch if the Community Eligibility Provision changes go through. They are among 393 schools and 251,318 children statewide who would be shut out. 

    “It would be devastating,” Marchetta said. “These are critical funds. If we are not being reimbursed for all of the meals we’re serving … the money has to come from somewhere else in the school district, so that is really not great.”

    Map: Eamonn Fitzmaurice/The 74, Data:Food Research & Action Cen

    Nearly 48,000 schools in more than 7,700 districts benefited from the Community Eligibility Provision in the 2023-24 school year. The program reimburses schools that provide universal free meals based on the percentage of their students who automatically qualify for free and reduced-price lunch because their families receive other types of assistance, like SNAP. 

    In 2023, after the COVID-era policy ended where any student could receive a free school meal regardless of income, President Biden lowered the percentage of high-need students required for a school to qualify from 40% to 25%, greatly expanding participation. 

    House GOP Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington now seeks to raise the rate to 60%. The budget proposal would also require all students applying for free and reduced-price meals to submit documentation verifying their family income.

    School meal debt, a barometer of food insecurity among students, is already on the rise. It will almost certainly increase if universal school meals disappear for students whose families make too much to qualify for free and reduced-price lunch but too little to afford to buy meals at school. At the same time, kids who are eligible for free and reduced-price meals could lose that benefit if the required paperwork becomes harder. 

    In the fall of 2023, across 808 school districts, the median amount of school meal debt was $5,495. By the fall of 2024, that amount reached $6,900 across 766 districts, a 25% increase, according to the School Nutrition Association.

    It was just $2,000 a decade earlier. A trio of Democratic senators is pushing to erase the $262 million annual debt total, with Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman saying in 2023, “‘School lunch debt’ is a term so absurd that it shouldn’t even exist. That’s why I’m proud to introduce this bill to cancel the nation’s student meal debt and stop humiliating kids and penalizing hunger.”

    Research shows students benefit mightily from free meals: those who attend schools that adopted the Community Eligibility Provision saw lower rates of obesity compared to those who did not. Free in-school meals are also credited for boosting attendance among low-income children, improving classroom behavior and lowering suspensions.

    Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America. 

    Joel Berg, the CEO of Hunger Free America, said further cuts will greatly harm the poorest students. 

    “Over the last few years, things have gone from bad to worse,” he said. “We were all raised seeing Frank Capra movies, where, in the end everything works out. But that’s not how the real world works. In the real world, when the economy gets a cold, poor people get cancer.”

    Hunger Free America found the number of Americans who didn’t have enough to eat over two one-week periods increased by 55.2% between August-September 2021 and August-September 2024. The states with the highest rates of food insecure children were Texas at 23.8%, Oklahoma at 23.2% and Nebraska at 22.6%. Georgia and Arkansas both came in at 22.4%. 

    The USDA slashed the $660 million Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program for 2025 — it allowed states to purchase local foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, for distribution to schools and child care institutions — and $500 million from the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which supported food banks nationwide. 

    Diane Pratt-Heavner, director of media relations for the School Nutrition Association, said that as families struggle with the high cost of groceries, the government should be doing more — not less — to bolster school meals and other food aid programs. 

    “We’re urging Congress not only to protect the federal Community Eligibility Provision, but to expand it,” Pratt-Heavner said. “Ideally, all students should have access to free school breakfast and lunch as part of their education.” 

    SNAP benefits stood at $4.80 per person per day through 2020 before jumping to more than $6 per person per day after they were adjusted for rising food and other costs. Even then, the higher amount was not enough to cover the cost of a moderately priced meal in most locations. 

    Republicans in Congress seek to cut the program by $230 billion over the next nine years, possibly by returning to the pre-pandemic allotment of $4.80 and/or expanding work-related requirements, said Salaam Bhatti, SNAP director at the Food Research & Action Center. 

    Another possibility, he said, is that SNAP costs could be pushed onto states — including those that can’t afford them. 

    “This would be an unfunded mandate,” Bhatti said. “States would have to take away from their discretionary spending to offset the cost and if it is not a mandate, then states in rural America and in the South that don’t have the budgets just won’t do it.” 

    Food-related funding decreases come as the child tax credit, created to help parents offset the cost of raising children, is also facing uncertainty, said Megan Curran, the director of policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.

    The American Rescue Plan increased the amount of the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,600 for qualifying children under age 6, and $3,000 for those under age 18. Many taxpayers received monthly advance payments in the second half of 2021, instead of waiting until tax filing season to receive the full benefits. The move cut child poverty nearly in half. The expanded child tax credit was allowed to lapse post-pandemic and now even the $2,000 credit could revert back to just $1,000. 

    All food-related and tax benefit cuts — plus the unknowns of Trump-era tariffs — will leave some Americans particularly vulnerable, Curran said. 

    “It’s shaping up to be a very precarious time for families,” she said, “especially families with children.”


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  • 39% of colleges rely on donors to address food insecurity

    39% of colleges rely on donors to address food insecurity

    Anabel’s Grocery at Cornell University addresses basic needs insecurity for students.

    Jason Koski, Cornell University

    College students are more likely to experience food insecurity, compared to the general population, but funding and support for programs that address basic needs in higher education remains limited.

    A 2024 survey by Swipe Out Hunger, a nonprofit group that addresses hunger among college students, found while a majority of colleges have a pantry for student supports, most are supported by philanthropy and not the institution.

    The campus leader survey, released last month, included responses from 347 of Swipe’s 850 partner campuses, representing over 766,600 students who engaged with basic needs resources, whether through the food pantry, SNAP enrollment program or a basic needs hub.

    The most popular campus support program was a food pantry, with almost all respondents (95 percent) indicating their college offers one for students. In 2024, campus pantries distributed over eight million meals and 687,000 additional items, such as toiletries, diapers or appliance lending.

    Campus leaders shared their primary win in the past year was expanding their program (56 percent) and supporting students (20 percent), but only 1 percent of respondents said they had administrative support, and 8 percent indicated they earned additional funding to aid expansion.

    In a similar vein, when asked what their primary challenges were, the greatest share identified funding (47 percent), followed by staffing (16 percent), space (11 percent) and support (10 percent).

    Two in five campuses identified donations as their primary funding source, which included staff payroll deductions and crowdsourcing. Only 5 percent of campus leaders said they had a dedicated budget from campus as their primary source of funding for programming.

    “This severe lack of sustainable funding for antihunger programs is preventing students from accessing the food they need to survive, which in turn affects their ability to stay enrolled,” says Jaime Hansen, executive director of Swipe Out Hunger. “With rising food costs and the lack of government support, campus food pantries and similar resources are becoming the only lifeline for students. If these programs continue to be overburdened and underfunded, we can expect to see less students being able to afford to stay in college.”

    A corresponding student experience survey found 40 percent of program users engaged with on-campus services weekly, and an additional 8 percent used resources every day.

    The top barriers to accessing nutritious food, students reported, were time constraints due to multiple responsibilities; the cost of meal plans, including on-campus food costs; anxiety about resource scarcity (taking away from peers who need it more); elevated costs of diet-specific foods; and living far away from affordable foods.

    Tackling basic needs insecurity: Some of the ways other organizations and institutions are addressing college student hunger include these efforts:

    • Believe in Students created an online curriculum to empower faculty to engage in basic needs support, providing relevant data and insights as well as how-to advice and encouragement.
    • Community colleges utilize FAFSA data to notify learners of their eligibility for SNAP or other state-level food assistance programs.
    • A group of students at Anne Arundel Community College contributed to a faculty-led cookbook featuring students’ nostalgic recipes adapted to utilize campus pantry ingredients.
    • New Jersey built a centralized website to help college students identify basic needs resources across the state.
    • Virginia Commonwealth University built miniature food pantries, modeled off little lending libraries, to increase access to shelf-safe food items across campus.

    How is your campus addressing food insecurity among students? Tell us more.

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  • Food insecurity is a problem on campuses: How can we fix it?

    Food insecurity is a problem on campuses: How can we fix it?




    By: Cate Gilpin and Martin Betts

    in On Campus, Top Stories


    February 10, 2025

    Food insecurity is not just a growing issue at a societal level, it’s an urgent crisis for students at Australian universities.

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