Details

Purpose:

Food insecurity, having reliable access to sufficient nutritious food, is a challenge for millions of people around the world. The purpose of this symposia is to define formal food assistance and charitable food assistance and describe their impact on food insecurity; highlight challenges that may impact the effectiveness of charitable food assistance in ensuring access to nutritious food; and the importance of addressing food insecurity in populations at high nutritional risk.

Rationale:

The importance of addressing food insecurity to support healthy nutrition behaviors is growing but it is vital to understand the contributions of formal versus charitable responses. Food insecurity is one of the most persistent challenges to accessing healthy nutrition and overall health.  Cancer patients are an example of a population for whom food insecurity poses even more challenges in accessing healthy nutrition.

Objectives:

Participants will be able to: explain the role and different impact of formal and charitable food assistance on FI; identify considerations for charitable food assistance in supporting healthy nutrition behavior; understand the importance of addressing food insecurity in populations who are already at high nutritional risk.

Summary:

This symposia will highlight the impact of formal and charitable food assistance on addressing food insecurity and the implications for healthy nutrition behaviors. The first presentation will present novel data on the impact of charitable food assistance on alleviating food insecurity. The second presentation will focus on the impact of assistance on food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically highlighting implications for effective charitable food practices. The third presentation will characterize the food security status and nutritional challenges of people with a history of cancer and emphasize the importance of clinical responses to ensuring access to healthy food. This will be followed by a discussion that will lead to future considerations for research and interventions that address FI in community and clinical settings.

Format:

10 minutes – Chair (Brenda Koester, Illinois) Overview of formal and charitable food assistance for nutrition access  and considerations for healthy nutrition behaviors

15 minutes- Craig Gundersen (Baylor):  The Impact of Charitable Food Assistance on Food Insecurity in the United States

15 minutes- Rachel Loopstra (Liverpool): Learning from National and Local Policy Responses to Food Insecurity in the UK during the COVID-19 Pandemic

15 minute: Anna Arthur (Kansas Medical Center): Understanding the Nutritional Challenges of Food Insecure Adults with a History of Cancer

20 minutes: Moderated discussion (Koester) with symposia participants and presenters

Speaker