Yiwei Sun: Task force should prioritize educating students on food security

Having been able to afford three meals a day, I never imagined myself to be food insecure. However, not starving is not equivalent to being food secure. When I am happily eating instant noodles, I am subconsciously subjecting myself to malnutrition, which is also a culprit of food insecurity. Food insecurity may affect a larger portion of the UCLA community than one might expect.

In March, University of California President Janet Napolitano took steps to eliminate this insecurity for all students, allocating $75,000 per campus to alleviate food insecurity as part of the UC Office of the President’s Global Food Initiative. With the call from UCOP, students, staff and community experts came together to form a task force on each campus with the short-term goal to provide food for students and long-term goals of coordinating resources and educating students on food security.

One of the greatest challenges in tackling food hunger is that students are reluctant to admit that they are in need of food because there’s a stigma associating food insecurity with poverty. This has stunted the ability of organizations to collect data on this matter. In fact, there is almost none.

Tackling food insecurity requires efforts in multiple areas, but the task force should first prioritize educating students on the existing efforts to reduce hunger and on the importance of food security. To do this and to help reduce the stigma, the task force at UCLA can cooperate with its Undergraduate Students Association Council representative, President Heather Rosen, to organize a food security awareness week. By giving out flyers and having booths from different on-campus resources that introduce their work, the task force can effectively educate the general student population.

We are unable to assess how many students on campus are food insecure because many are embarrassed to go to the on-campus resources or aren’t aware of them. Without students’ cooperation, the task force won’t be able to accurately identify UCLA’s need and distribute funds properly to meet the demand. When students are informed on this issue, they will be more understanding toward students in need and encourage a respectful environment.

During the awareness week, booths of organizations can be set up at Bruin Plaza and flyers can be given out along Bruin Walk. Students can stop by the booths and grab a pamphlet of resource information on their way to classes.

Furthermore, this awareness week can also include the Hill to promote food security among the residents and dining staff. These events near the dorms can be additional opportunities for residents to directly donate meal swipes to Swipes for the Homeless, which then collaborates with UCLA Dining Services, or the Economic Crisis Response Team to provide meal vouchers or additional nonperishable food to students in need.

Additionally, it can advertise other organizations such as the Community Programs Office, which provides a free food closet in the Student Activities Center, and 580 Cafe in Westwood, which provides free food to students.

When the stigma of not being able to afford a proper meal is erased with more recognition of the issue, more students in need will come to on-campus resources, and this will allow for more accurate data collection.

Moreover, when the general student population is informed on the food insecurity issue and how students can help their peers in need, they will donate more to organizations such as CPO. This will result in a positive cycle, encouraging more understanding of food security and more donations.

However, it’s not just an issue of hunger. Food insecurity affects students of all backgrounds. A student who can afford lunch on campus but lacks time to buy a proper meal and ends up eating unhealthy snacks is also considered to be food insecure. Other than money and time, other factors such as distance also perpetuate food insecurity.

When students are aware of the resources such as the food closet on campus, they can quickly grab a snack there and avoid hunger pains. This also can keep them from having to rely on unhealthy but quick resources such as vending machines for sustenance.

If this group of students continues to be out of reach from future efforts, then the goal of eliminating food hunger will never be truly achieved. By promoting the importance and prevalence of food hunger among students, these issues will be addressed adequately.

Food insecurity affects students regardless of their financial status. Alleviating food hunger should not be done by the efforts of the task force alone but with the general participation of the student population as a whole. Education is the key to encouraging the student population to face the issue together and will also be the weapon to tackle food hunger at UCLA.