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Hailey Casas
March 28, 2015
Prof. Allen
Writing 109
Food Insecurity in College Athletes
As a collegiate athlete myself I understand the struggles of time management for
both the athlete and the coach. They always say you are a student-athlete, but honestly
since I have been playing competitively, I have been an athlete that happens to be a
student. There are a couple problems student athletes face; one, time, we never have
enough time for sleep and homework and school on top of practices and games. Second is
not having any extra money because you cant get a job due to being too busy. Lastly, and
probably most importantly, not being able to eat food at normal food serving hours. The
Problem is that coaches schedule practices and games during dinner times usually and
either it goes all the way through dinner or even past it. The way we should solve this
food insecurity problem is to have more food pantries for colleges and make more rules
about scheduling during food times, even a raise in the budget for dinners for athletes
during season.
One case that caught attention from the press is Robert Woods a wide receiver
from the USC Trojans football team. When practice ran late or their games made them
miss food hours he would not be able to eat dinner due to not having any extra money.
The only money he was receiving was scholarship money, which just went toward his
education. His coach eventually saw what was happening and took control of the
situation and got some of his players some food, people found out and the players that

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received the food got suspended. (Bayden, 2012) In 2014 the NCAA decided that student
athletes should receive unlimited snacks, this does not solve the problem but it alleviates
some of the hunger going around in the athletic departments. (USA Today, 2014)
On average the full scholarship an athlete receives leaves students having to pay
about $3,280 dollars out of their pocket in 2011 and 2012.(Myerberg,2014) One way we
can solve this hunger problem is to have schools start a food pantry just for students with
food insecurities. Even if a student were to obtain a part time job at minimum wage they
would only receive about $8,000 a year, barely enough to pay for food let alone the rest
of their tuition and any other costs. (De Luna, 2014) Plus, students rarely qualify for
SNAP or food stamps, because they technically are still dependent on their parents, even
though they dont live with them. Food pantries need to be established at more schools it
is up from four at 2012 to one hundred and twenty in 2014. (Feed America, 2014)
Being a student athlete is one of the hardest jobs to have as a young adult, it
makes it way harder when you dont get fed on a regular basis. Performance in the
classroom and on the field is limited when the student doesnt have enough nutrients to
get them through the day. To solve this problem we would have to lay down some rules
with the coaches and the schools. The coaches could make practices a little earlier or cut
them shorter and pay for meals when games run long. The school could keep the food
serving hours open for a little longer. Or even open a food pantry for students that need to
eat more often then what they are doing. I feel that these things would help solve the
problem of food insecurities in student athletes. It would improve their performances on
and off the field making the coach and the school happier.

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Citations
America, F. (2014, April 19). About Us. Retrieved March 30, 2015, from
http://www.feedingamerica.org/our-response/about-us/
Sports, P. (2014, April 26). NCAA schools put money where athletes' mouths are.
Retrieved March 30, 2015, from
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2015/04/26/unlimited-food-snackswisconsin-oregon-ncaa-student-athletes/26405105/
Sports, U. (2014, April 15). NCAA council votes to give student-athletes
unlimited meals, snacks. Retrieved March 30, 2015, from
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2014/04/15/ncaa-legislative-council-mealsstudent-athletes/7750413/
Resnikoff, N. (2014, September 3). The hunger crisis in America's universities.
Retrieved March 30, 2015, from http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-hunger-crisisamericas-universities