Food security as a basic need: College students need greater support from institutional administration.

Food insecurity among college students has become a growing concern, with reports documenting its prevalence for over a decade. As the demographics of university and college students change, with more first-generation, nontraditional, and minority students, the risk of food insecurity is heightened. This viewpoint contends that food security is an essential basic need among college students, and when left unmet, it significantly impacts their well-being, resulting in an increased risk of poor academic performance or departure from higher education before degree completion.

Green roles at home: exploring the impact of household social dynamic processes on consumption at the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus.

Capturing the social dynamic processes among household members that work to shape consumption patterns presents a complex problem for household resource conservation studies. To bridge the gap between the individual and household, we propose and test a series of quantitative measures that explore the underlying structure of household social dynamic processes through the lens of social practice theory. Based on previous qualitative research, we develop measures to test five distinct social dynamic processes that either encourage or deter pro-environmental action: enhancing, norming, preferring, constraining, and allocating.

Advancing college food security: priority research gaps.

Despite over a decade of both quantitative and qualitative studies, food insecurity among US college/university students remains a pervasive problem within higher education. The purpose of this perspective piece was to highlight research gaps in the area of college food insecurity and provide rationale for the research community to focus on these gaps going forward. A group of food insecurity researchers from a variety of higher education institutions across the United States identified five thematic areas of research gaps: screening and estimates of food insecurity; longitudinal changes in food insecurity; impact of food insecurity on broader health and academic outcomes; evaluation of impact, sustainability and cost effectiveness of existing programmes and initiatives; and state and federal policies and programmes.

Changes in Food Security Status During Undergraduate Enrollment.

Objective: To explore changes in student food security status (FSS) during college enrollment and correlates of those changes.

Design: Two cross-sectional surveys (2016 and 2019).

Participants: Undergraduates (n = 338) at a public university who completed both surveys.

Campus-based programmes to address food insecurity vary in leadership, funding and evaluation strategies.

College food insecurity is a known detriment to student success, but little is known about the implementation of campus-based programmes to help address this issue on campus in the United States. The objective of this research study was to determine the types of food insecurity initiatives implemented and assess how such programmes are managed, funded, and evaluated. A cross-sectional, 23-item online survey was administered among individuals involved with campus food insecurity initiatives identified through professional networks.

Underestimating College Student Food Insecurity: Marginally Food Secure Students May Not Be Food Secure.

The purpose of this study was to understand the demographic, student, financial, and academic differences between marginally food secure college students and students with high, low, or very low food security (FS). Unlike highly food secure students, marginally food secure students worry about the quantity and quality of their food, yet they are classified in the same category as highly food secure individuals as per the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reporting standards. To investigate marginal FS among college students, a cross-sectional online survey was administered at a large, public, research university in the Northeastern United States.

Teachers' Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Breakfast in the Classroom: The Importance of Health.

Background: Teacher resistance is sometimes cited as a barrier to implementing Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC), an approach to school breakfast in which students eat at their desks after the school day has begun. Given their role in serving breakfast with BIC, teacher perceptions may be critical in implementing an effective BIC program.

Methods: K-5 teachers (N = 249) in an urban, low-income school district completed an online survey that assessed their expectations of BIC (retrospectively), perceptions of its benefits and challenges, and current program satisfaction.

Modeling retrospective attribution of responsibility to hazard-managing institutions: an example involving a food contamination incident.

Perceptions of institutions that manage hazards are important because they can affect how the public responds to hazard events. Antecedents of trust judgments have received far more attention than antecedents of attributions of responsibility for hazard events. We build upon a model of retrospective attribution of responsibility to individuals to examine these relationships regarding five classes of institutions that bear responsibility for food safety: producers (e.

Nutrient analysis of varying socioeconomic status home food environments in New Jersey.

Home food inventories of Oaxacan Mexican-American and African-American families of low-socioeconomic status living in an urban area in New Jersey with at least one child under the age of 12 were conducted using Universal Product Code scanning. The African-American and Oaxacan household food supplies were compared with a sample of White households, also with at least one child under the age of 12, not of low-socioeconomic status. Nutrient Adequacy Ratios for total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate, sugar, dietary fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron were used to quantify the adequacy of household food supplies per 2000 cal.

A test of numeric formats for communicating risk probabilities.

Background: Because people frequently encounter information about the probability of health risks, there is a need for research to help identify the best formats for presenting these probabilities.

Methods: Three waves of participants were recruited from visitors to a cancer-related Internet site. Participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario that required them to perform 2 mathematical operations of the types that might be encountered in discussions of risk.

Risk compensation and vaccination: can getting vaccinated cause people to engage in risky behaviors?

Background: Some believe that vaccinating young women against human papillomavirus (HPV) will increase their risky behavior. In more formal terms, vaccination lowers risk perception, and people compensate for their lower perceived risk by reducing other preventive behaviors.

Purpose: We test several predictions from the risk compensation hypothesis in the context of vaccination behavior.

Risk perceptions and their relation to risk behavior.

Background: Because risk perceptions can affect protective behavior and protective behavior can affect risk perceptions, the relations between these 2 constructs are complex and incorrect tests often lead to invalid conclusions.

Purpose: To discuss and carry out appropriate tests of 3 easily confused hypotheses: (a). the behavior motivation hypothesis (perceptions of personal risk cause people to take protective action), (b).