Growing Up With A Food Insecure Adult: The Cognitive Consequences of Recurrent Versus Transitory Food Insecurity Across the Early Elementary Years

Abstract

To investigate how kindergarteners cognitively developed in a family with an adult who experienced recurrent versus transitory food insecurity, a sample of 1,040 kindergarteners (mean age = 5.6 years) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 was analyzed using multilevel growth modeling. Results indicated that kindergarteners from homes with an adult who experienced recurrent food insecurity (twice within a 24-month period; n = 490) initially had slower growth in reading relative to their counterparts who were in homes with an adult who was food insecure only once over the same time period (n = 550). However, this initial disadvantage diminished over time. As a result, the recurrent group’s reading trajectory converged with that of their transitory peers by second grade. These findings highlight the value of adopting more temporal view of food insecurity and its developmental consequences.