Katharine M. Broton , Clare L. Cady . Food Insecurity on Campus: Action and Intervention. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. $39.95. pp. 312. ISBN 9781421437729.

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Rachel L. Renbarger
• Date: 01 September 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.392

593

doi: 10.1002/wmh3.392

© 2021 Policy Studies Organization

BOOK REVIEW

Katharine M. Broton, Clare L. Cady.Food Insecurity on Campus: Action and

Intervention. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. $39.95. pp. 312.

ISBN 9781421437729.

Many students cannot finish their college work because they are too tired from

working multiple jobs or too hungry to concentrate, and often need to leave their

university to focus on meeting their basic needs. If universities want their students to

succeed (and finish their degrees), what are they to do? Food Insecurity on Campus,edited

by Katherine Broton and Clare Cady, provides an overview of how colleges can take

action to support their students who face food insecurity. The purpose of the book is to

“provide a venue for college, community, and policy leaders to share the lessons they

have learned in the fight to end student hunger and compile a comprehensive source of

information, guidance, and support for those seeking to develop an intervention or

strategy”(p. 1)and the book accomplishes this well. As the editorial team is made up of

a researcher (Broton)and a practitioner (Cady), the book maintains a balance between

studying food insecurity and making concrete changes to help alleviate that specific

issue.

The introductory chapters by the editors frame the issue and then the book tran-

sitions into examples from authors across the country. The first chapter, written by

Broton, provides the national context on income inequality, inflation, and financial aid to

set the stage for needing food insecurity work. She defines food insecurity in accordance

with the USDA guidelines and explains that students face food insecurity along a

spectrum, from high food security where students rarely face issues with accessing food

to very low food security where students have “multiple indicators of disrupted eating

patterns and reduced food intake”(p. 18). In consideration of this spectrum of needs, the

next chapters outline how efforts to alleviate food insecurity also exist on a continuum.

Cady starts the discussion of how to alleviate food insecurity and hunger in the

second chapter. She describes her (and her group's)efforts to serve universities on a

national scale regarding the most popular method of serving students: the campus

food pantry. Through this chapter, Cady explicitly details what they did, how

they did it, and what they learned which provides credibility to her as a leading