FEDERATION FOR THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
B.C. Study Shows Canadian University Students are Hungry, and it's Not Only for Knowledge

Nanaimo researchers Jenna Sportak, Sydney Gallant and Meagan Sharpe among leading line-up of speakers at Congress 2025, Canada's leading academic gathering, taking place May 30 - June 6

They attend university to feed their minds, but for one in three Canadian university students, the real hunger is in their stomachs. The solution? It's time for institutions to take real action to combat food insecurity.

That's the message of a team of Vancouver Island University (VIU) researchers who are calling on universities to move beyond short-term fixes and commit to systemic, student-led change.

"We need to change the narrative about the struggling student as a rite of passage, where it's socially accepted to eat only ramen noodles or survive off of Kraft Dinner, and just roll with the punches," said Sydney Gallant, an undergraduate sociology student taking part in VIU's Community-Based Applied Interdisciplinary Research (CBAIR) program. "Food insecurity isn't an individual failing - it's a campus-wide crisis that's only getting worse."

Gallant and fellow CBAIR researchers Jenna Sportak and Meagan Sharpe will present findings from a recent food insecurity survey their team conducted at VIU at the upcoming Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Congress 2025), Canada's leading academic gathering and one of the most comprehensive in the world, taking place May 30 to June 6 in Toronto.

Billed as a leading conference on the critical conversations of our time, Congress 2025 themed "Reframing togetherness" serves as a platform for the unveiling of thousands of research papers and presentations from social sciences and humanities experts worldwide. With more than 7,000 scholars, graduate students and practitioners expected to participate, the event will challenge attendees to model togetherness by working across differences, questioning hierarchies, and bridging divides in knowledge and experience to tackle the world's most persistent challenges.

In addition to opening an online survey to all students actively enrolled at VIU, including regional campuses, the researchers applied Embark Student Foundation funding to conduct an outreach campaign, where they visited campuses to hand out student snack bags with a survey QR code inside, and presented to select classrooms in person.

"Food insecurity is a conversation that's a bit uncomfortable, that's not fun to talk about, yet we found a lot of people were really willing to engage with us because it's such an important issue that's affecting their everyday lives," said Sharpe. "They were just waiting for someone to come in and say, You've got to eat today."

In their Congress presentation, the researchers will discuss their finding that awareness and access are just as important as affordability when it comes to tackling food insecurity on campus.

Though high cost of food was the number one barrier reported by survey respondents (77%), students also cited lack of marketing and awareness about existing food supports and programs. For example, VIU already provides a food pantry, breakfast bar and free meals supported by local charities, as well as end-of-day price reductions at school cafeterias, but information about those programs is difficult to navigate because it's shared primarily by word of mouth only.

According to the survey, students who identify as food insecure skip 4.5 meals per week on average, with some missing as many as 20. In general, international students are suffering more than their domestic peers, specifically when it comes to finding culturally appropriate food on campus, and the most shocking revelation from the survey was that some students are resorting to unconventional ways of obtaining food, such as stealing/shoplifting and even dumpster diving.

"That was surprising for us, because you hear about it but you don't really suspect that it's going on in your own backyard," said Sportak.

To mitigate food insecurity, the researchers are calling for student-informed solutions that prioritize food security as a core objective, such as establishing a food (in)security student representative as part of the student union. They also recommend more targeted marketing and awareness campaigns to help break down the stigma associated with going hungry.

"Our biggest take-away from this survey is that although there's good work being done in terms of short-term fixes, we need to start pushing for healthier conversation around food insecurity so students realize it's not their own failing, that they could literally throw a stone and find someone in their vicinity who is experiencing the same struggles," said Sportak.

Organized by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences in partnership with George Brown College, Congress 2025 is sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Universities Canada, Colleges and Institutes Canada, University Affairs, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Sage, and The Conversation Canada.

Registration - which includes 100+ keynote and open Congress sessions, with a virtual attendance option for many presentations - is $30. Visit https://www.federationhss.ca/en/congress2025 to register for a community pass and access the program of events open to the public.