Food Insecurity Case Study

Food Availability for a College Student: The Case of UC Irvine Students
Today many college students are faced with eating a poor diet, because they do not have the money or the time to eat properly. With this in mind, I am going to research what college students are eating and how they obtain the food. To conduct this research, I will observe the food UC Irvine college students are eating for their lunchbreaks, either at work or in between classes, around the University of California at Irvine campus. By conducting this study, I will find out whether students are buying their food from grocery stores, buying from fast-food restaurants or cooking the food themselves. In addition, I will interview subjects and learn about their daily food

They concluded that food insecurity is an important problem that college students have to deal with, and additional systems that can distribute healthier foods to these students should be implemented. Additionally, it surveyed 354 students enrolled in universities around Oregon during 2011. In order to measure food insecurity, the survey relied on the Food Security Survey Model, while also measuring socioeconomic and demographic background. The study noted that most students, who made under $15,000 a year, were especially vulnerable to food insecurity. By relying of quantitative research, this study manages to estimate the amount of college students suffering from poor eating habits. This illustrates that college students have a very high level of food insecurity, and I might be able to observe this activity during my research on the University of California, Irvine campus. This, food insecurity study, is beneficial to my own research, although it is limited because it did not use a qualitative approach as I will use. Furthermore, their surveys were conducted online and asked every participant the same questions. On the other hand, I will be conducting interviews, rather than surveys, which will individualize information garnered on each participant. I will be using less participants, but my study should

During the 1990-1991 school year, dietary records of 1,912 college students were examined to identify the amount of meals students skipped and which types of food students were actually eating. The study found that 22% of the students skipped their breakfast, however students were recorded to snack at least once a day. Furthermore, the study also found men consumed foods with higher calories and higher amount of fat. The study appears to be more quantitative, however qualitative practices must have taken place when interviewing subjects about their meals to input into the dietary records. The findings propose that college students should be eating more vegetables and fruits, along with consuming less carbonated beverages and dishes with a high amount of fat. Although, this is a well done study, it is limited because it was done over 20 years ago, so eating habits of college students might have changed within this time. For instance, within these 20 years, the perception of soda has changed drastically, which illustrates the need for this type of study to be more relevant to college students today. Moreover, much of this study is focused on what these students are eating, but I also believe finding out about how students attain their meals is important for the understanding of a college student’s dietary