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

Abstract

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.