About 13.5% of U.S. households or nearly 18 million families experienced food insecurity in 2023. Food insecurity manifests as a person’s uncertainty of accessing sufficient and nutritious food. It is increasingly recognized as a series risk factor for mental health.
A recent cross-sectional study published in Health Science Reports, led by Lena Begdache, PhD, an Associate Professor at Binghamton University, generates new insights on how food insecurity impairs resilience and elevates distress, particularly among young adults. The researchers found that this occurs even in the absence of a negative “stress mindset”. The study’s design and sample population:
- 1,099 U.S. respondents were surveyed, 70% of whom were under the age of 30, using validated scales to measure food insecurity, resilience, stress mindset, and mental distress.
- The researchers assessed how food insecurity relates to psychological outcomes across gender and age groups.
Their key findings:
- Food insecurity was significantly linked to lower resilience and heightened mental distress, but was unrelated to stress mindset. A stress mindset was defined as a person’s orientation toward stress (e.g. seeing it as positive or negative) and it remained unchanged.
- Physical activity was the strongest positive factor promoting resilience and improving a stress mindset. This finding suggests that exercise may offset some of the mental stress associated with food insecurity.
- The negative effects of food insecurity, like increased mental distress and reduced resilience, were more pronounced in women than in men. This means that when women experience food insecurity, they are more likely than men to also experience emotional or psychological challenges like stress, anxiety, or lower ability to bounce back from hardship.
Why is this important:
- The study demonstrated that resilience is not automatically built from adversity, as is often thought. The researchers found that when hardship involves poor diet quality, it does not build resilience, but rather may leave people more fragile, rather than stronger.
- Food insecurity did not affect a person’s stress mindset, but rather by other personality or environmental variables.
Implications for Policy and Practice
- The study highlights the need for targeted programs that take gender and age into account. Responses that treat food insecurity as a gender-neutral issue may miss opportunities to help those most at risk.
- Programs should not only address hunger, but address resilience, particularly through promoting exercise.
- Improving the quality of a person’s diet, not just caloric sufficiency, could play a critical role in mental well-being
This research highlights a paradox: food insecurity leads to greater mental distress and lower resilience, even when people maintain a positive stress mindset. In the U.S., where millions faced food insecurity and many recently lost pandemic-related additional SNAP benefits and many more are poised to lose them under the 2025 national appropriation, referred to as ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ these findings suggest that solutions must go beyond food access alone. Quality nutrition, physical activity, and gender- and age‑sensitive mental health interventions all play vital roles in supporting well‑being.
Read the full research report here: https://doi.org/10.1002/hsr2.70787
The Interplay of Food Insecurity, Resilience, Stress Mindset, and Mental Distress: Insights From a Cross-Sectional Study by Lina Begdache, Amera Al-Amery, Katerina K. Nagorny, Ushima Chowdhury, Lexis R. Rosenberg, Zeynep Ertem; Binghamton University Press Release: https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/5633/new-research-explores-how-food-insecurity-affects-stress-and-mental-health?
