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First published online February 22, 2019

Hunger and Food Well-Being: Advancing Research and Practice

Abstract

This article explores the paradigm of Food Well-Being (FWB), “a positive psychological, physical, emotional, and social relationship with food,” for those who experience hunger. Building on the insights derived from two sources—research across a range of disciplines including marketing and the practices of the nonprofit Hunger Task Force to alleviate hunger and advance FWB—the authors explore the five domains of FWB: food availability, food socialization, food literacy, food marketing, and food policy as they relate to people who experience hunger. The authors establish a research contribution by extending the FWB paradigm to include people experiencing hunger and by applying this extended paradigm to illuminate the impact of hunger on people’s FWB. Finally, the authors propose research to guide researchers, policy makers, and nonprofits toward generating FWB for all.

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Article first published online: February 22, 2019
Issue published: April 2019

Keywords

  1. food well-being
  2. hunger
  3. social change
  4. transformative consumer research
  5. food insecurity

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Notes

Melissa G. Bublitz is Associate Professor of Marketing, College of Business, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, and Affiliated Faculty of the Sustainability Institute for Regional Transformations (SIRT) (email: [email protected]). Jonathan Hansen is Director of Development, Hunger Task Force. Laura A. Peracchio is Judith H. and Gale E. Klappa Professor of Marketing, Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (email: [email protected]). Sherrie Tussler is Executive Director, Hunger Task Force.

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