CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.3 Social challenges confronting the student community in the universities
2.3.4 Food insecurity and hunger among students in universities in South
It is pertinent to know that there is a high rate of poverty and unemployment in South Africa notwithstanding the advent of democracy in 1994 (Labadarios et al., 2011). The authors lament that poverty and unemployment had been worsened by the ever- increasing prices of food, petroleum products, and bank interest rates. In July 2019, the unemployment rate in South Africa grew from 27% to 29% from the first quarter to the second quarter of the same year in a population of 58 million people (Statistics South Africa, 2019). Unemployment results in food insecurity:
Hunger is a condition in which people lack the required nutrients – both macro (energy and protein) and micro (vitamins and minerals) – for fully productive, active and healthy lives. Hunger can be short- term/acute or longer-term/chronic and has a range of mild to severe effects. It can result from the insufficient nutrient intake or from people’s bodies failing to absorb the required nutrients – hidden hunger. Two billion people suffer from vitamin and mineral shortages.
It can also result from poor food and childcare practices (World Food Programme, 2009).
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Munro, Quayle, Simpson, and Barnsley (2013) argued that the lack of nutritionally adequate food to students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) is a barrier to academic outcomes, graduation, job prospects and socio-economic improvements of students. It is believed that families' economic and social position in relation to others, based on income, education, and occupation, affects the educational performance of their children in South Africa (Taylor & Yu, 2009). Internal UKZN reports have highlighted financial constraints that cause academic failure especially among students from poor backgrounds. These students find it difficult to fund study-related expenses such as accommodation, textbooks, and meals. A study of five other South African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) reported similar causes underlying student failure (Wickham, Jones, Coetzee, & Bailey, 2008). “Students at South African institutions of higher learning who suffer food insecurity will additionally experience psychological and emotional stress as a factor that can impact negatively on health, self-esteem, and motivation, leading to academic underperformance and can prevent self-actualisation” (Sabi, Siwela, Kolanisi, & Naidoo, 2018, pp. 16-17).
There have been some efforts made by the government to alleviate poverty among the people after South Africa became a democratic nation, however, the country remains “one of the highest in the world in terms of income inequality” (Ramudzuli, 2019, p. v). The author associated the disparity in the income gap to socioeconomic factors such as access to health, literacy level, and the quality of the neighbourhood.
A study conducted in South Africa by Kumo, Omilola, and Minsat (2015), revealed that people in 23% of the homes surveyed could not get enough food to eat while people in 13% of homes had experienced starvation in 2013. The authors conceded that food security remains a challenge in South Africa and that despite various government interventions to ease poverty, disparity persists among the people which affects societal integration. The university students from historically disadvantaged communities are not insulated from this problem. A common belief in South Africa is that obtaining a tertiary qualification will enable social mobility and poverty alleviation.
Taylor and Yu (2009) asserted that being educated is seen as a route that makes individuals get job opportunities thereby overcoming the challenges of being raised in underprivileged settings in South Africa
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The students from historically disadvantaged communities, who are predominantly Africans, form a major population of the total university student contingent in South Africa. The Department of Higher Education and Training (2013) confirmed that in the year 2013, 394 238 African students, out of a total number of 558 038, represents 68%
of the total number of the student population that enrolled in the 23 South African contact universities. The Republic of South Africa (1998, p. 3) defined “historically disadvantaged persons as those persons or categories of persons, who prior to the new democratic dispensation marked by the adoption and coming into force of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act, 1996 (Act No. 108 of 1996), were disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the basis of their race and includes juristic persons or associations owned and controlled by such persons”. Many students residing in the university campus residence are historically disadvantaged and experience challenges such as hunger and lack of proper nutrition as a result of their poor economic background. This is based on both research studies which were reviewed and my personal experience and having lived in the campus residence for the last six consecutive years (from 2014 to 2019). In a study conducted at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), Gresse, Pietersen, and Steenkamp (2015, p. 94) stated that “Hostel students also reported a significantly lower consumption of fruit, vegetables, and dairy products, with 25 percent indicating insufficient funds as the reason”. The authors also argued that the monthly meal allowance, received by students on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) funding, was inadequate to provide three balanced meals per day for a month. Hence, I suggest that there is a great need to pay more attention to the community of students who reside in the university accommodation having to struggle with food insecurity.
South African universities have privileged student accommodation at the expense of food security. Dominguez-Whitehead (2015) attested that in order to make housing more affordable to students, many South African universities do not provide food preparation in the university residence halls which makes the less privileged students' food insecure. Bruening, Argo, Payne-Sturges, and Laska (2017, p. 1767) concluded that “food insecurity was consistently associated with financial independence, poor health, and adverse academic outcomes”. My study explored university- community engagement (U-CE) linked to health matters related to nutrition and food security for
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students thereby enhancing social consciousness and transformation through critical pedagogy.
2.3.5 Health problems and wellbeing related to nutrition affecting the university