Food Insecurity Is Worsening Parents' Mental Wellbeing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, 12.6 million Americans were laid off from their jobs in September, but it still does not count those millions of workers who had their hours reduced or faced a pay cut. For a lot of people, it is tough to make ends meet. 

That is why experts are looking for COVID stressors, such as food insecurity, and how they are affecting families as well as their mental health. 

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Before the pandemic, the problems with lack of food and mental health are already existing. However, because of what is happening right now, it only highlighted and pointed out how severe and serious such problems are. 

Food insecurity

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of groups stood up to help those people in need. 

In Orlando, where the said virus greatly affected their tourism industry, there are days allotted for free food, all in hopes to battle food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, where it only stressed the seriousness of this problem. They do this as soon as the sun comes up. Cars form a double line in a church parking lot to give out food. 

Before, the One Heart for Women and Children served 3,000 people a month. 

Right now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Stephanie Bowman, founder of the non-profit group, said that they are helping over 20,000 people with their needs, mainly with their food. 

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The problem with mental health

Aside from the problem such as food insecurity, another thing that experts are looking into is the problem with mental health. 

Anna Johnson, a psychologist, together with her team, are looking into how this time, during the COVID-19 pandemic, affects low-income families and teachers. They found out that food insecurity is linked to worse mental health of people that are experiencing this. 

Johnson explained the relation between people with higher rates of mental health issues and problems are the same ones that went along with high rates of food insecurity. Aside from this, she also mentioned that high rates of depression for parents, depression, and lack of food are linked to one another. 

The results of the survey

Parents, students, and teachers were all part of a study of low-income children in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, those children were in first grade. 46% of the parents said that they lost their job or their work hours have been reduced. 59% said that there has been a decrease in their household income, and 49% said that they are worried that their food would run out later on. 

In many places, other safety nets, such as meals to go or free meals are helping those families to get by. 

47% of parents surveyed also said that their child had increased problems with their mental health since the pandemic began. 

The pandemic is not the sole reason behind the lack of food, and thereby the problem with mental health to those people experiencing this. Although the virus is a factor why this is happening, other factors such as governance and inequality are also to blame for such problems. 

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