Food insecurity among international students’ studying in Melbourne, Australia: experiences and impacts

Food insecurity among international students at Australian universities is a hidden phenomenon obscured by shame and stigma, exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis and deprivations intensified by the Covid-19 epidemic. However, there is limited diversity in understanding of young people’s navigations of food insecurity. The aims of this paper are to illuminate the experiences, impacts, management strategies and factors affecting international students’ ability to access and acquire culturally appropriate food that is nutritious, sufficient and safe. Overall, key findings relate to the importance of the early months after arrival to their country of study and the related, and increased likelihood of experiencing food insecurity during that time. These months are crucial due to competing priorities related to securing housing, study and linguistic challenges, a constrained financial situation, and the time required to develop knowledge about the city, its neighbourhoods and how best to procure safe, accessible, nutritious and culturally familiar food. Another key finding was that cultural food insecurity underscores students’ ongoing experiences with food, as well as the dissatisfaction, disconnection and melancholy that accompanies trade-offs that are inevitably made resulting in settling for locally available food that is less nutritious, culturally familiar or desirable. If international students are to be adequately supported during their time studying in Australian universities, better evidence-based solutions, informed by international students themselves, need to be identified.