Created by: Mollie Davis, Sophie Hamer, Anders Hanhan, Ava Hillman, and Delaney Kingsland
This project examines food availability at Lawrence University and the surrounding area by mapping food establishments in downtown Appleton that are located within walking distance from the University. Our goals are to highlight the lack of grocery stores and fresh produce available, discuss how this limits students at Lawrence from access to affordable, healthy meals when the on-campus food is not an option, and propose solutions at Lawrence to ensure that students are able to consistently have access to food.
As Lawrence students, we have access to Kaplan’s Café, Andrew Commons, a food pantry, and a shopping shuttle during the school year. The hours of these facilities, however, are limited meaning that many students, especially those involved in athletics, the conservatory, and those that work jobs are forced to miss meals on campus. Kate’s Corner Store, another location at Lawrence with limited hours, is also expensive for students to consistently shop at, and dietary restrictions further limit students’ options. Students who live and work on campus over the summer have even fewer options. By mapping the surrounding food ecology of downtown Appleton, we can see how food insecurity at Lawrence University is worsened by the lack of access to grocery stores and limited fresh food options that are available at the establishments located within walking distance.
We have chosen to use walking distance as a measure for mapping food availability because walking is one of the most accessible forms of transportation; most students do not have access to a car, many do not own bikes, and the Fox Valley Transit system is intermittent and slow. However, we recognize that not all individuals living and working on campus can walk for extended periods of time, so this choice also has its limitations and exclusions.
For this project, we have defined “walking distance” as a 30-minute walk one way or up to an hour round trip, as determined by Google Maps walking pace. For in-session college students who have limited time, or for those at Lawrence exposed to high temperatures and humidity in the summer, we determined that any further of a walk would be considered unreasonable.
We initially considered walking 30-minutes both east and west on College Ave using Main Hall at Lawrence University as our starting point. As we began to map this area, however, we found that East College Avenue only has residential housing within that 30-minute walk parameter. For that reason, this map depicts only the establishments west of Main Hall.
This project surveyed and categorized 155 of the businesses available within the 30-60min walking distance parameter.
We then categorized each business and grouped them using the following six categories that we created:
Miscellaneous (retail stores, banks, hotels, community centers, etc.)
Restaurants - pink (businesses that offer a full menu of food and are open to all ages)
Restaurant/Bars - mint (accessible only to those 21+, and may include limited menus)
Restaurant/Cafes - yellow (businesses that offer a limited menu of food, and emphasize non-alcoholic beverages)
Pharmacy/Food - purple (businesses that offer some processed food, and emphasize pharmaceuticals)
Miscellaneous/Food - red (businesses that offer some processed food, and emphasize retail goods)
Based on our survey and categorizations, we found that:
59% (92/155) of businesses fall under the miscellaneous category
15% (23/155) of businesses fall under the restaurant/bar category
14% (22/155) of businesses fall under the restaurant category
5% (7/155) of businesses fall under the restaurant/cafe category
4% (6/155) of businesses fall under the miscellaneous/food category
2% (4/155) of businesses fall under the pharmacy/food category
After surveying and categorizing all 155 business establishments we mapped only those that offer food as their primary service. This includes businesses that fall under the categories restaurants, restaurants/bars, and restaurants/cafes (34% of all the establishments) and excludes the other 102 businesses that fall under the miscellaneous, pharmacy/food, and miscellaneous/food categories.
We found that a total of 63 businesses whose role is to offer food options for purchase, but of these establishments—which account for only 39%—there are zero that offer fresh produce or groceries. Restaurants also don’t offer as many varied options for different dietary restrictions.
Because many chain grocery stores are large and require a lot of land, they are often located farther from city centers. For students at Lawrence who struggle to eat on campus during meal hours, this means that their options are limited to these few establishments off-campus. Dr. Jenike addressed this in his interview, saying that “if you’re relying on places that prepare food, like take out or for [eating] in, it is often costlier and it’s harder to have a nutritious diet."
While food insecurity is not a Lawrence-specific issue, the surrounding Appleton area exacerbates the problem for Lawrence students by not having accessible, affordable, and healthy food options.
Mapped Businesses, South Side of College Avenue:
North Side of College Avenue:
*After mapping these businesses we learned that some of them do not offer food options.
One of the limitations of our study is that it lacks additional student opinion and input. Including a wider range of student needs and concerns might open up further areas of research including the ability to find foods that adhere to dietary restrictions, mapping how food availability overlaps with eating disorders and other medical conditions that might impact food consumption, and with the food costs associated with the establishments we mapped that further compound food insecurity issues that make it even harder for students to access affordable and healthy foods. We additionally don’t map how welcoming local establishments are to people of various ethnicities, sexual orientation or gender identity, which is another factor that can limit the available options to students at Lawrence.
Future research could incorporate student interviews and surveys into measures of food insecurity because first-hand accounts and experiences are extremely important in understanding food security issues for different individuals. It could also be beneficial to speak to coaches and/or conservatory professors to get an idea of how food insecurity impacts the performance of their students or athletes from their perspective.
Another limitation is our decision to only map the walking distances and times to food institutions on College Avenue, which restricts our inclusion towards students that have the time, ability, and willingness to walk this distance. In the future, we would like to map routes that are covered by the Valley Transit system and the Lawrence Shopping Shuttle in order to examine how these modes of transportation might be more inclusive of the needs of the Lawrence population.
A third limitation is that we map on a linear plane along College Ave, which excludes other potentially more accessible or affordable establishments. The scope of a future research project could be expanded to include a 30-minute walking radius around the university, rather than the linear view that this project took. It could also research and propose food institutions that could be added to downtown Appleton or the surrounding area that would create affordable and sustainable healthy food options for students, as well as low-income residents.
Q: How would you define food insecurity?
A: It usually includes both an inability to get foods that allow for all of the healthy activities of daily living. And it also usually includes an element of foods that meet cultural needs and that are acceptable to people. And if those foods that meet those criteria are not accessible, then that would be food insecurity. Accessibility could be related to a whole bunch of stuff cost, transportation, all kinds of things.
Q: And then when expanding outside of the Lawrence campus, what are issues and patterns that you see in, like, the Fox Valley or Appleton? And the way that the city is way laid out and functions that contributes to food insecurity for students but also contributes to, like, a food insecurity issue as, like, a matter of, like, Appleton?
A: I think the main sources of food for people probably are grocery stores and prepared food establishments, restaurants, all kinds of stuff like that. Grocery stores are not located in the central part of the city, so they tend to be large. They take up a lot of space, so they're a little further out, probably where the land is cheaper or easier accessibility, more parking. So that's a problem for people who don't have cars and who don't live near a grocery store. It's harder to have a nutritious diet when you're eating restaurant food. Right. In part because of the choices that are available in the work I've done with people in the community heres.
Q: Both professionally here and in the community, what involvement do you have in food security work?
A: I did some work with two Lawrence students earlier who connected with a community based nutrition group here that was focused on people living with obesity in the Fox Cities. And in particular, what were some of the barriers that they faced to what did they feel like was a healthy diet and a healthy pattern of physical activity? And then what were some of the barriers they faced to actually enacting what they felt would be a healthy lifestyle? So we've written a paper from that. People who have family members that either require a lot of care or that have special dietary needs, that can be a challenge. Also, there's a bunch of other stuff, too. Anti fat stigma is an issue that actually drives people toward less healthy diets as well. Right now I'm working with a group that is kind of a reformed group of the previous group. It's called Be Well Fox Valley. And the first project we've been working on, which I'm kind of peripherally involved with is with a diabetes food intervention where we've recruited people from the healthcare systems around here who are both food insecure and who have uncontrolled or poorly controlled diabetes. And they get a twelve or 13 week education program along with food deliveries and recipes and then a follow up alumni program. And we're trying to see if this has a measurable impact on their different health indicators. That one's been going on now for a year and a half or so, and it's going really well.
Dr. Jenike also adds that:
"one other potential solution for downtown that I did not mention – maybe more practical than a full-service grocery – would be a convenience store with healthy options. KwikTrip has a relationship with Partnership for a Healthier America that has supposedly increased the healthfulness of their food options (I haven’t checked for myself), but they are a gas station model, which would not work for downtown. Bodega type stores can offer healthful options too, though not all do, and we don’t really have a bodega tradition here in the Fox Cities. A more compact retail establishment like a convenience store or bodega, which catered to people wanting prepared food as well as some grocery basics, might meet some of the need, but I don’t know whether there is a viable business model for it here.
Solutions
In the interview conducted with Dr. Mark Jenike, he highlighted the work he is contributing within the Appleton community to address food security for low-income residents. Be Well Fox Valley is one organization that is working to educate and feed food insecure individuals with poorly controlled or uncontrolled diabetes.
As for the issue of episodic food insecurity on college campuses, the co-authors of the Harvard/Bon Appétit study, Cheryl Sternman Rule (Ed.M.) and Dr. Anthony Abraham Jack, suggest several policy changes that could help solve this on a widespread scale. They also offer implementations that campuses should consider; while some of these options— such as making it easier for students to share meal points (“Culinary Cash” as it is called at Lawrence) or increasing scholarships to cover meal plans for low-income students— would aid in increasing food security of Lawrence students in certain ways, they are not solutions that are equipped to solve the specific issues discussed in this project.
Thus, we would like to add to this with the following solutions that could be implemented at Lawrence University:
Hours of operation at Andrew’s Commons, the Kaplan’s Café, and Kate’s Corner Store should be extended to accommodate students’ diverse and busy schedules. This would diminish the experience of food insecurity for individuals because they would have access to healthy options throughout the day.
The institution should offer a limited meal plan for students who stay on campus during the summer or other school breaks. This would help low-income students and students without cars who stay on campus have access to healthy and affordable food.
Anthony Jack, P.h.D says that “if [universities] are making it a point to diversify [their] campus or acknowledge who [they] have on [their] campus, specifically lower-income students, [they] need to be aware of the problems they face, and food insecurity is one of those problems.” As an institution, we believe that Lawrence should use their resources to understand this issue on their campus and how it is impacting students, as well as acknowledge how Appleton’s downtown situation intensifies the problem. In working to support individuals in their community, Lawrence can mitigate the negative impacts that food insecurity has on the health, wellbeing, and academic performance of college students.
Sources
Cheryl Sternman and Anthony Abraham Jack, “When Students Are Hungry An Examination of of Food Insecurity in Higher Education”, Bon Appetit.
Food Insecurity Interview with Lawrence Professor Mark Jenike, Anders Hanhan, May 26, 2022.
Google Maps, https://goo.gl/maps/x9THGYkDeWW5svSx6, (Accessed May 21, 2022).
Grace Tatter, https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/18/11/food-insecurity-college-campuses, “Food Insecurity on College Campuses”, HGSE Publishing, November 15, 2018.
Partnership For A Healthier America and Kwik Trip, https://www.ahealthieramerica.org/our-partners/kwik-trip-29, (Accessed May 31, 2022).
US. Department of Agriculture, “Definitions of Food Security”, USDA ERS - Definitions of Food Security, https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/definitions-of-food-security/, April 22, 2022.