It’s not just hunger: Food insecurity undermines health in myriad ways
November 6, 2025
If you were asked to list the risks of food insecurity, you might quickly mention hunger pangs or illness. That can certainly be part of the day for those who don’t have consistent, reliable access to food. But there’s a lot more going on than the kind of gnawing in the gut that many of us only experience when it feels like it should be lunchtime but it’s only 11 a.m.
The physical and emotional effects of food insecurity can be less obvious, but equally concerning.
“Food insecurity influences a child’s development from the moment they’re in the womb all the way to an older adult’s ability to stay out of the hospital,” says Allison Karpyn, a professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Delaware. “So chronic disease is a major factor that we know goes hand in hand, unfortunately, with food insecurity. Diet-related disease, diabetes, cancer, and then mental health, depression, anxiety.” Adults with low food security are more likely to screen positive for depression and higher stress, she adds.
Dr. John Fink, vice president for quality and medical affairs with Bayhealth, says food insecurity is “so much more than just not being able to get food to eat, it’s not being able to get the right food to eat.” Inexpensive foods, he notes, are often laden with unhealthy ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup.
It makes sense that what we put into our bodies impacts our health. But our approach to medicine often focuses more on diagnosis of symptoms and then treatment, says Dr. Wendi Schirvar, a clinical psychologist with Beebe Healthcare. That is starting to change as researchers and medical professionals take a new look at the role food can play in restoring health and preventing disease. Hospital systems like Beebe and Bayhealth recognize the importance of nutrition and screen patients for food insecurity.
“You see the patients who, because they’re not eating, come in malnourished. Those are the obvious ones, right? But the patients who are just not eating well … it’s a little more insidious, but it’s just as — if not more — dangerous for them,” says Fink, who also serves on the board of directors for the Food Bank of Delaware.
The harm is slow. Fink compares the effects of poor diet to beach erosion. It’s not that a tidal wave comes and wipes out the beach in a day. “It’s that slow, gradual, wearing away. You don’t notice it as much one day after the next. But after a bad season, or a couple seasons in a row, you look back, you’re like, ‘Oh my god, what happened to the beach?’”
He gives the example of someone with diabetes who might be stuck eating cheaper pasta instead of fresh produce and lean meat. That raises their blood sugar, and down the road they start to suffer further complications like kidney problems, high blood pressure, heart disease, and blindness.
Child development also comes into play. Kids need protein, healthy fats, and calcium for strong bones, Fink says. “[Malnutrition] can absolutely affect a child’s learning ability, their physical development, growth, all those things.”
The ripple effects can rock mental health as well. A few serious mental health conditions, like certain seizure disorders, are exacerbated by lack of nutrition, Fink says. But often, it’s more about the grind.
“All of these things add up,” Fink says. “They just create so much anxiety in someone’s life, trying to worry about feeding themselves and their family, where their next meal is going to come from.” People also may know they are leading unhealthy lives, which can feed into depression and doubting their self-worth.
Stress can affect not only an adult’s ability to function, Karpyn says, but influence the way they parent their children, passing along the impact to the next generation.
At this point, it can be difficult to disentangle the health effects of food insecurity with a host of other issues that arise from poverty.
“If you can’t afford to eat, you often can’t afford transportation, and you can’t afford heat, and you can’t afford medicine. So it becomes a more tangled web,” Karpyn says.
Part of that tangle can be a schedule crunch. Those with food insecurity may be working multiple jobs, Fink points out, leaving them struggling to find time to cook.
When people are exhausted by their jobs, or living in an unhealthy home environment, the last thing they may want to do is think about what they’re making for dinner, says Beebe’s Schirvar. So they reach for the quick alternative, often less-healthy foods with preservatives.
Health care providers can help through what Schirvar calls whole person care. “Addressing things like nutrition is literally one of the first things I do,” she says.
Beebe partners with the Food Bank of Delaware on a food as medicine program in southern Delaware, offering not just food but education on healthy and affordable eating. That includes cooking demonstrations and nutritional sessions, along with some simple cooking tools and spices that people can take home, says Kim Blanch, director of community outreach at Beebe Healthcare.
“Patient testimonials are fantastic,” Blanch says. “They’re really benefiting not just from receiving the food, but also learning how to prepare it healthfully … it’s a lot of skill building and knowledge building.” Beebe has also seen encouraging results from health tests for those who have participated.
Bayhealth works with the Food Bank to keep nonperishable food on hand that doctors can offer patients who are at risk for food insecurity, Fink says. They also try to educate patients on healthy eating. Fink recommends steps like timing shopping trips to allow cooking in advance on the weekends when people have more time. They can freeze meals, or boil a dozen eggs for multiple quick healthy breakfasts during the week.
While there are no easy fixes to poverty or food insecurity, the Food Bank and its partners are finding ways to encourage steps that can make a difference for people’s health in their everyday lives.
