Household Food Insecurity, School Connectedness, and Psychosocial Adjustment in Early Adolescence

While food insecurity is often examined in the context of hunger and physical health, it also significantly affects psychological wellbeing. Given the link between stress and food insecurity, youth in food-insecure households are at a higher risk of experiencing internalizing and externalizing problems. However, less is known about protective factors that may protect youth from the detrimental effects of food insecurity on behavior.

The sample includes 288 adolescents that completed assessments of food insecurity, school connectedness, and emotional and behavioral problems. Teachers completed surveys on student attention problems.

After controlling for sociodemographics, multiple regressions revealed that greater food insecurity was linked with higher levels of anxiety/depression, aggression, and attention problems. School connectedness moderated the effect of food insecurity on rule-breaking behaviors, such that food insecurity was only related to more rule-breaking behaviors in youth reporting low school connectedness.

Interventions aimed at improving school connectedness may lessen behavioral problems, especially among students experiencing food insecurity, reducing barriers to intermediate education.

These results suggest that food insecurity is associated with multiple psychosocial problems that may be alleviated by a greater sense of belonging at school.