Food Purchasing and Food Insecurity: Among Low-income Families in Toronto

Abstract

Despite their resourcefulness, low-income families struggle to feed their families. Dietitians have an important role to play as advocates for adequate income supports to promote food security and nutritional health.

Associations between the purchase of healthy and fast foods and restrictions to food access: a cross-sectional study in Melbourne, Australia

“…This is in contrast with previous studies (8)(9)(10) which found that the purchase of recommended healthy foods declined with increasing food insecurity due to lack of money. This could be due to differences in the cost of these foods or the size of government allowances across the countries or cities in which these studies were conducted.…”

“…Levels of food insecurity due to lack of money have been shown to be as high as 11 % in the USA (5) , 5 % in Australia (6) and 8 % in the UK (7) . The evidence available suggests that food insecurity related to a lack of money is associated with a decline in total household food supplies and of nutritious foods such as dairy, meat, grains, fruit and vegetables (8)(9)(10) . A second indictor relates to physical limitations, such as the inability to carry groceries.…”

Adults’ food skills and use of gardens are not associated with household food insecurity in Canada

“…[12][13][14][15][16]25 Consistent with our observation of less nutrition label use among adults in foodinsecure households, accounts of the priorities that food-insecure parents apply to their food purchasing decisions suggest that price and family food preferences take precedence over nutrition considerations when resources are scarce. 13,14,25 The discrepancy between our results and US program evaluation data showing that improving adults' food skills can reduce their food insecurity (see for example refs. [18][19][20] may simply reflect differences in the scope of these research endeavours.…”

“…Less is known about the importance of adults' food skills and self-provisioning activities in mitigating the effects of limited incomes on household food security, but community cooking and gardening programs and other educational initiatives aimed at strengthening individuals' basic food skills are widely perceived as valuable interventions to improve the food security of low-income households. [8][9][10][11][12] While the resourcefulness and frugality of adults tasked with food shopping in the context of limited resources have been well documented, [12][13][14][15][16] there has been little assessment of the relation between adults' food skills and household food security. The few Canadian studies of programs designed to strengthen the budgeting and cooking skills of at-risk adults suggest that these interventions have limited impact on food insecurity, 8,17 but more structured evaluations of broader-scale, targeted nutrition education initiatives in the US have shown reductions in household food insecurity with improved food shopping and cooking skills (see for example refs.…”

Exploring sales data during a healthy corner store intervention in Toronto: the Food Retail Environments Shaping Health (FRESH) project

“…The proportion of overall store sales from different product categories cannot be attributed to individual-or household-level characteristics. However, previous research with low-income families in Toronto has demonstrated the resourcefulness of those living under serious economic constraints manifested in household food insecurity, 25,26 and the wide array of factors contributing to decision making with household budgets. For example, among low-income families, while price is a key factor in purchasing decisions, and social assistance payments appear to structure monthly food purchases, economizing may depend on preference and health considerations, as well as perishability, durability and other value attributes associated with food items.…”