The Food Bank and Food Pantries Help Food Insecure Participants Maintain Fruit and Vegetable Intake During COVID-19

  1. Farryl Bertmann
  2. Katherine Rogomentich
  3. Emily H. Belarmino
  4. Meredith T. Niles

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Charitable food services, including food banks and pantries, support individual and households' food access, potentially maintaining food security and diet quality during emergencies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of food banks and pantries has increased in the US. Here we examine perceptions of food banks and food pantries and their relationship to food security and fruit and vegetable (FV) intake during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, using a statewide representative survey ( n = 600) of residents of Vermont. The utilization of food pantries was more common among food insecure households and households with children. Among food insecure respondents, those who did not use a food pantry were significantly more likely to report consuming less FV during the pandemic. Further, we find respondents who are food insecure and using a food pantry report consuming more FV since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that respondents who were both food insecure and reported not using a food pantry were significantly more likely to report both a reduction in fruit consumption ( b = −0.58; p = 0.001) and a reduction in vegetable consumption ( b = −0.415; p = 0.012). These results indicate that these services may support food access and one important dimension of diet quality (FV intake) for at-risk populations during emergencies.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.3389/fnut.2021.673158
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.26.21252552: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    To determine statistically significant differences between groups, we utilized SPSS Version 27(28) and Stata Version 16 (29) to run descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and multivariable logit models.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.02.26.21252552v1 on medRxiv