"I'm Doing the Best that I Can": Mothers Lived Experience with Food Insecurity, Coping Strategies, and Mental Health Implications

Background: Food insecurity can have lasting physical and mental health consequences. The experience of food insecurity within a household may disproportionately impact mothers because they tend to manage the household food environment.

Objective: This study sought to understand the stresses faced by United States mothers experiencing food insecurity, related coping mechanisms, and the impacts of these stressors on their mental health.

Methods: Semistructured interviews were conducted in May and June 2022 with a purposive sample of Virginia mothers who reported experiences of food insecurity. Participants were recruited from a related survey and university and community LISTSERVs. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed by trained coders. A thematic analysis was conducted to describe themes that emerged from the data. Virtual interviews were 20-60 min in duration. Mothers with children living in their household, having experienced food insecurity, and living in Virginia were eligible.

Results: The following 3 themes emerged from the interviews with the mothers (n = 15): 1) food insecurity added stress to mothers' lives in multiple ways (e.g. worry about obtaining the "right" foods and internalized or experienced stigma), 2) mothers used positive and negative coping strategies to address the impacts of these stressors (e.g. use of community resources and reduced personal food intake), and 3) the stressors and coping strategies had varying impacts on mothers' mental health (e.g. added to existing mental health challenges or reduced their mental capacity to make changes).

Conclusions: Study findings suggest that a multilevel and tailored approach to address diverse stressors is warranted. Future research should explore emotional coping strategies that comprehensively empower mothers to manage stressors, leverage resources, and reduce social stigma associated with food insecurity and accessing nutrition and mental health assistance. This may improve their household food security and mitigate the burden of stressors on their mental health because system-level solutions to food insecurity are pursued.