For families that are food insecure — without regular access to affordable, nutritious food — mothers experience a unique stress burden. This is especially true for single mothers, who are twice as likely to be food insecure. “Mothers are typically the managers of food in the household. They go shopping, they manage the budget, so they take on the stress and responsibility. If they have limited resources, that stress increases,” says Maia Hyary, PhD’20. “Mothers in foodinsecure households adopt coping mechanisms to protect their children. They’ll forgo their own medications and eat less healthy food to feed their children first.”
spot light dissertation
Food insecurity causes unique stress in mothers, long-term effects for children: Maia Hyary, PhD’20 By karen shih
These behaviors, combined with the biological consequences of stress-driven cortisol production, can lead to weight gain and poor health outcomes. Research shows a correlation between food insecurity and obesity in women, particularly mothers. For her dissertation, Hyary examined two key questions: How does maternal stress affect the relationship between food insecurity and maternal weight? And how does maternal stress affect a child’s likelihood of being food insecure as an adult? She used a nationally representative longitudinal data set from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, focusing on stressors such as family disruption, mental and physical health, financial stress, lack of emotional and practical support, and changes to household composition. She hypothesized that stress would exacerbate weight gain among food-insecure mothers. But she found that particular stressors had the opposite effect: Mothers who became food inse-
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