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For many, the years spent at university can be a challenging time due to academic stressors as well as personal and emotional difficulties. During this important and liminal period, food security is crucial for health and psychological wellness, as well as academic performance and success. This week\\u2019s guest, Tara Hattangadi, is a recently defended Masters student who\\u2019s work explores the impact of food insecurity on mental health and wellness of university students.

Tara\\u2019s research sheds light on the importance of food security and demands that sufficient support during this key period be made widely available to all students \\u2013 which includes university wide programs to facilitate equitable access to healthy foods.\\xa0

In this episode, we talk about her masters research and the exploratory route she took to engage in this very massive, under-researched problem of food insecurity amongst university students in Canada. She outlines what food insecurity looks like for students and why it\\u2019s important that we look at university students as an at-risk group. Poor diet has both short and long-term implications on mental health, student success, and social wellbeing, and Tara seeks to highlight how to improve access for students struggling to find healthy and affordable food.\\xa0

Resources:

• The Meal Exchange Cross-Campus Study:\\xa0https://www.mealexchange.com/hungry-for-knowledge/

• Tara\'s Three Minute Thesis (3MT):\\xa0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj5SPFfMRwA

• An article, published in CBC News early this year, about food insecurity among students at the University of Saskatchewan:\\xa0https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/40-of-u-of-s-students-face-issues-around-food-insecurity-study-shows-1.4470573

• Another really great read, published in Medium, about student food insecurity:\\xa0https://medium.com/@saragoldrickrab/whos-hungry-making-sense-of-campus-food-insecurity-estimates-4b65cd1ecf2c\\xa0

Social:

Instagram: @tahrannosaurus or @sustainabindi