Food insecurity is often viewed as an economic issue, but for many survivors and children, food can also become a tool of coercive control, neglect, and abuse.
By: Doreen Hunter
Editor: M. Ruffin
For many families, food insecurity is discussed as an economic issue. But for survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, coercive control, and child abuse, access to food is often tied directly to safety, power, and survival.
This month, Thrive After Domestic Violence officially launched Thrive Open Kitchen, a community food initiative designed to help families access fresh meals, reduce barriers to nutrition, and strengthen community support systems.
At first glance, a meal kit may seem too simple to make a meaningful difference. It isn’t. Thrive’s approach personalizes meals so they can realistically be used by families while also helping provide healthier, more substantial food options. As a survivor and domestic violence advocate, I have learned that food is never just food. It can become a tool of control, a source of fear, the reason someone stays in an abusive situation, or the difference between stability and exploitation.
The Hidden Link Between Food Insecurity and Abuse
Research consistently shows that food insecurity and violence are deeply connected. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) notes that food insecurity can increase vulnerability to sexual violence and exploitation, particularly among people experiencing poverty or housing instability. One study cited by NSVRC found that one-third of homeless youth engage in survival sex, and nearly half reported trading sex for food or shelter.
According to the USDA, food insecurity affected 18.4% of U.S. households with children in 2024, impacting millions of families nationwide. The USDA also reported that more than 7 million children lived in households where both adults and children experienced food insecurity.
For survivors attempting to leave abusive relationships, food insecurity becomes another layer of entrapment. Many survivors leave with little to no financial resources, limited support systems, and children depending on them for stability. In those moments, food insecurity is not simply about hunger. It becomes part of the calculation of whether someone feels they can safely leave at all.
Abusers often understand this vulnerability. Food can become intertwined with coercive control in ways that are difficult for outsiders to recognize. Some survivors describe being forced to ask permission to eat, being denied access to grocery money, or having every household necessity monitored and controlled. Others describe skipping meals so their children can eat while an abusive partner continues to control the family finances.
Economic abuse also plays a major role. Survivors may be prevented from working, sabotaged at work, denied transportation to grocery stores, or isolated from support systems that could help them access food. In many households, food insecurity is not accidental. It is part of a broader system of dependency and control.
Organizations such as Sanctuary for Families have highlighted how financial abuse and food insecurity frequently overlap in homes where domestic violence exists. Survivors escaping abuse are disproportionately likely to experience poverty, housing instability, and barriers to basic necessities, including food.
Food insecurity is not always visible from the outside. A family may appear stable while privately rationing meals, relying on inexpensive processed foods because healthier options are financially out of reach, or remaining in dangerous situations because leaving could mean homelessness and hunger.
Food as a Tool of Coercive Control
Coercive control is often misunderstood because many people associate abuse only with physical violence. However, abuse can also involve the control of basic human necessities, including food or water.
In abusive households, control over food may initially appear small to outsiders. It may begin with criticism about what someone eats, strict monitoring of grocery spending, or controlling access to kitchens and appliances. Over time, those behaviors can escalate into patterns of deprivation, intimidation, humiliation, and psychological control.
Children are particularly vulnerable in these environments. In some abusive homes, food becomes a form of punishment, neglect, or emotional manipulation. This can become especially dangerous for children with food allergies or medical dietary restrictions. Survivors and advocates have reported situations where an abusive parent intentionally ignores dietary needs, withholds safe foods, or uses allergies as a means of intimidation and control. These actions are not simply parenting conflicts. They can place children at serious physical and emotional risk.
For many survivors, food deprivation is intertwined with financial abuse. An abusive partner may withhold grocery money, sabotage employment, prevent access to transportation, or isolate survivors from support systems that could help provide food assistance. In these situations, food insecurity becomes part of a larger pattern of dependency and coercion.
Food insecurity is not simply about hunger. It is about instability, fear, uncertainty, and the emotional toll of never knowing whether basic needs will be met.
The Impact on Children
For children, these experiences can create long-lasting trauma. Children living in food-insecure households are more likely to experience chronic stress, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and developmental challenges.
Research examining Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has consistently linked childhood exposure to domestic violence, instability, and food insecurity with long-term physical and mental health consequences. The CDC identifies exposure to violence, abuse, neglect, and household instability as major childhood adversities that can affect brain development, emotional regulation, and long-term health outcomes.
In one case I was involved in, a young child would return from visitation repeatedly complaining about not having enough food. The child was still in kindergarten. In the primary home where the child lived, there was an abundance of food available, including foods that accommodated the child’s allergies and dietary needs. However, during visitation periods, the child often experienced food deprivation and uncertainty around meals.
Over time, the child adapted in ways commonly seen in children experiencing instability and survival-based stress. The child began stealing food and hiding it in closets during visitation periods. If they were sent to their room or denied dinner, they had learned to keep hidden junk food available to supplement meals and avoid going hungry.
What made the situation particularly concerning was not simply the lack of food itself, but the psychological impact the deprivation had on the child. The child began developing anxiety around eating, fear surrounding food access, and behavioral responses rooted in survival rather than typical childhood behavior. Over time, these experiences contributed to both emotional distress and worsening medical concerns.
Children experiencing food insecurity or food-related coercive control do not always present in obvious ways. Sometimes the signs appear as hoarding food, hiding snacks, binge eating when food becomes available, emotional dysregulation, anxiety, gastrointestinal issues, or behaviors that adults mistakenly interpret as defiance or misconduct.
Unfortunately, these dynamics are not always recognized by the systems intended to protect children. Guardians ad litem, CPS investigators, therapists, schools, and courts may focus primarily on visible physical abuse while overlooking patterns of deprivation, coercive control, or food-related neglect occurring directly in front of them.
Studies examining violence reporting have also shown that schools often function as one of the primary safety nets for identifying abuse and neglect in children, yet many forms of coercive control and deprivation remain underreported because they do not always present as visible physical violence.
In some situations, school staff recognized the immediate problem and contacted the safe parent to provide food for the child. That often meant urgently ordering meals through DoorDash or Uber Eats, interrupting work obligations to deliver food personally, or rushing safe foods to the school that accommodated the child’s dietary restrictions and allergies. While individual staff members sometimes attempted to help address the immediate hunger, the larger pattern of deprivation and instability was never formally reported to CPS or fully recognized as part of a broader coercive control dynamic.
When a child is being abused through the control of food, police or teachers — even those trained in domestic violence — may not recognize that a child hiding food is often demonstrating a survival response. A child obsessing over meals may be communicating fear, instability, or uncertainty about whether they will be fed. Agencies should take note when a child eating foods that medically harm them out of desperation may not be “noncompliant,” but instead responding to prolonged deprivation and inconsistent access to safe food.
Without understanding the power dynamics involved in coercive control, systems may misinterpret these warning signs and fail to recognize the deeper trauma occurring beneath the surface.
Research examining Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has consistently found connections between childhood adversity, household instability, and food insecurity. Children who grow up in environments where food is uncertain often internalize fear and shame surrounding eating. Some become hyperaware of household tension surrounding groceries, bills, or meals. Even when physical violence is not present, the instability itself can have profound psychological effects on a child’s sense of safety.
Why Thrive Open Kitchen Exists
Thrive Open Kitchen was created because survivors and struggling families need more than emergency responses after crisis occurs. They need practical support, community, and access to healthy meals without shame.
For many families experiencing domestic violence, coercive control, financial instability, or crisis, the stress surrounding food access becomes part of a much larger survival struggle. Something as simple as knowing there will be food available for the week can reduce pressure, restore dignity, and help families regain a sense of stability during difficult periods of their lives.
Our goal is simple: to help local families access food in a dignified, community-centered way.
Through Thrive Open Kitchen, families can receive meal kits designed to help provide lunch and dinner support for one week. The initiative also works to accommodate dietary restrictions and allergies whenever possible because food safety matters — especially for children and survivors whose medical or dietary needs may have previously been ignored, minimized, or weaponized within abusive environments.
But Thrive Open Kitchen is about more than groceries. It is about reducing pressure before families reach a breaking point. It is about helping parents breathe a little easier during periods of uncertainty and creating a community where asking for help is not treated as failure, but instead recognized as part of how communities support one another through hardship.
Why Collaboration Matters
No one organization can solve food insecurity, domestic violence, housing instability, and economic hardship alone. Survivors do not experience these issues in isolated categories, and communities cannot respond to them in isolated ways.
Families experiencing abuse are often navigating multiple crises at the same time. A survivor may be dealing with financial abuse, unsafe housing, food insecurity, transportation barriers, childcare concerns, and trauma simultaneously. Traditional systems are often overwhelmed, and many organizations are doing the best they can with limited resources.
That is why collaboration matters.
At Thrive After Domestic Violence, we believe meaningful community support requires organizations to work together rather than operate in silos. Thrive Open Kitchen was intentionally built as a collaborative effort because addressing food insecurity requires practical partnerships and community participation.
We are proud to work alongside , whose shared commitment to helping local families made this launch possible. Community organizations may serve different roles, but when values align around dignity, compassion, and practical support, collaboration creates stronger safety nets for families.
Our goal is not simply to provide meals. Our goal is to help build a community culture where families are supported before they reach a crisis point and where asking for help is met with compassion rather than stigma.
Meaningful change requires communities willing to work together.
Food Access Is Violence Prevention
When communities improve food access, they also strengthen safety. Research shows that poverty, housing instability, and lack of basic resources increase vulnerability to violence and exploitation. When families are forced into survival mode, the pressure of meeting everyday necessities can increase dependency on unsafe relationships, create barriers to leaving abusive environments, and heighten the risk of exploitation.
National research has also found strong connections between food insecurity and childhood adversity. One study examining more than 50,000 children found that families experiencing domestic violence and other ACEs were significantly more likely to experience household food insecurity
Reducing those survival pressures can help families make safer decisions and create pathways toward greater long-term stability.
For many survivors, having access to groceries means having one less impossible decision to make. Practical support can restore a sense of agency during moments of crisis and uncertainty while also helping reduce the chronic stress that often affects both parents and children living in unstable environments.
Food access alone cannot solve domestic violence, coercive control, or systemic poverty. However, community-centered support systems can help reduce some of the barriers that keep families trapped in dangerous situations. Access to food, housing support, transportation, safe community connections, and practical resources all play a role in helping families stabilize before a crisis escalates further.
No parent should have to choose between feeding their children and staying safe. No child should experience hunger as punishment. And no survivor should remain trapped because basic necessities are being controlled.
Editor’s Note: This article is intended for educational and advocacy purposes only and does not constitute legal, medical, or mental health advice.
References
National Sexual Violence Resource Center. (n.d.). Food access is vital for survivors and sexual violence prevention. NSVRC.
[NSVRC Food Access Resource](https://www.nsvrc.org/blog_post/food-access-is-vital-for-survivors-and-sexual-violence-prevention/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Sanctuary for Families. (2023). Food insecurity.
[Sanctuary for Families Food Insecurity Resource](https://sanctuaryforfamilies.org/food-insecurity/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Chiaramonte, D., et al. (2023). Food insecurity and intimate partner violence: Understanding the intersection of survival and safety. Journal of Global Health, 13, 04021.
[Journal of Global Health Study](https://jogh.org/2023/jogh-13-04021/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
National Library of Medicine. (2025). Food security for survivors of intimate partner violence. PubMed Central.
[PubMed Central Article](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12918138/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. (2025). Key statistics and graphics: Food security in the U.S.
[USDA Food Security Statistics](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). About adverse childhood experiences.
[CDC ACEs Information](https://www.cdc.gov/aces/about/index.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Drexel University Center for Hunger-Free Communities. (2021). Adverse childhood experiences and food insecurity.
[Drexel ACEs and Food Insecurity Research](https://drexel.edu/hunger-free-center/research/briefs-and-reports/aces-food-insecurity/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Cornell University. (2022). Teachers as mandated reporters and barriers to recognizing child maltreatment. arXiv.
[Mandated Reporting Research](https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.14612?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
When Food Becomes a Weapon: Examples of Coercive Control Through Food
Conversations about abuse often focus on physical violence, but coercive control frequently operates through everyday necessities, including food. Because food is tied to survival, health, comfort, culture, and caregiving, it can become a powerful tool for manipulation, punishment, humiliation, and dependency.
In many situations, the abuse is subtle enough that outsiders dismiss it as “conflict,” “picky eating,” “personality issues,” or “miscommunication.” Yet over time, these patterns can create serious physical and psychological harm.
The following scenarios illustrate ways food may be weaponized in homes, workplaces, and other environments.
Scenario 1: Weaponizing a Child’s Food Allergies
A parent takes a child on long grocery shopping trips knowing the child is hungry and already overwhelmed. Throughout the trip, the parent repeatedly selects foods the child cannot safely eat due to allergies, sensitivities, or medical dietary restrictions.
The child watches siblings or adults receive foods they enjoy while being told they are “too difficult,” “too expensive,” or “dramatic.” As the trip continues, hunger intensifies. Eventually, the child gives in and eats foods that trigger painful reactions simply because they are starving and there are no safe alternatives available.
Later, the child experiences severe gastrointestinal distress, inflammation, pain, vomiting, or allergic reactions. In some cases, repeated exposure to trigger foods can result in chronic medical complications requiring hospitalization, invasive testing, or emergency medical intervention.
For example, repeatedly forcing dairy or gluten on children with sensitivities or medically recognized intolerances may contribute to:
• chronic constipation
• intestinal inflammation
• malnutrition
• dehydration
• severe abdominal pain
• gastrointestinal bleeding
• hospitalized bowel cleanouts
• feeding aversion and food-related anxiety
Over time, the child may begin associating food with fear, punishment, shame, or physical pain.
In abusive households, this behavior is sometimes minimized as “strict parenting” or disagreement over nutrition. However, intentionally ignoring a child’s documented medical needs can become a form of neglect and coercive control, particularly when the behavior is repetitive and used to assert power over the child’s body or well-being.
The psychological impact can also last long after the physical symptoms improve. Children raised in these environments may develop anxiety around eating, guilt over requesting accommodations, disordered eating patterns, or difficulty recognizing safe and unsafe caregiving behaviors later in life.
Scenario 2: Food Control and Humiliation in the Workplace
Food-related coercion can also occur in professional environments, particularly when workplace culture dismisses health concerns or enables retaliatory behavior.
An employee repeatedly brings meals to work that comply with medical dietary restrictions or sensory sensitivities. However, coworkers mock the smell, texture, or appearance of the food and complain to management or human resources. Instead of addressing the harassment appropriately, leadership minimizes the issue or frames the employee as “difficult.”
Over time, the employee begins skipping meals to avoid conflict.
In other situations, food may be intentionally tampered with or stolen. An employee’s labeled meal may repeatedly disappear from shared refrigerators, forcing them to go without eating during long shifts. For individuals with medical conditions, allergies, diabetes, sensory disorders, or food insecurity, this can create serious health and emotional consequences.
While some people dismiss food theft or food-related teasing as harmless workplace behavior, repeated targeting can become part of a larger pattern of exclusion, intimidation, or retaliation.
The emotional impact is often cumulative:
• anxiety about eating at work
• fear of ridicule
• social isolation
• reduced productivity
• physical illness from skipped meals
• financial strain from replacing food
• increased stress for employees already managing chronic health conditions
For survivors of domestic violence or coercive control, these workplace experiences may also mirror patterns of deprivation and humiliation experienced at home, compounding trauma responses.
Scenario 3: Restricting Food Through Financial Abuse
In some abusive relationships, the issue is not the absence of food in the home but who is allowed access to it.
An abusive partner may control all finances while monitoring every grocery purchase. Survivors may be required to provide receipts, justify food choices, or ask permission before buying basic necessities. Meanwhile, the abusive partner continues spending freely on themselves.
Some survivors describe hiding snacks for their children, skipping meals so others can eat, or secretly storing food because they fear punishment if household supplies “run out too quickly.”
This form of control creates dependency and reinforces the survivor’s inability to safely leave the relationship. Hunger becomes intertwined with fear, shame, and survival.
Scenario 4: Public Humiliation Around Food
Food can also become a tool for emotional humiliation.
An abusive partner or parent may publicly mock someone’s eating habits, body size, allergies, or dietary restrictions in front of family members, coworkers, or peers. Children may be forced to eat foods that make them sick while adults dismiss their reactions as exaggeration or attention-seeking.
In social situations, survivors may avoid eating altogether to prevent ridicule or confrontation.
Although these behaviors may appear minor in isolation, repeated humiliation surrounding food can significantly impact self-esteem, body image, mental health, and a person’s relationship with eating.
Why These Scenarios Matter
Food insecurity and food-related coercion are often overlooked in conversations about abuse because they do not always leave visible injuries. However, control over food can affect nearly every aspect of a person’s physical and emotional well-being.
When someone controls access to food, they are often controlling health, comfort, independence, dignity, social participation, financial stability, and ultimately, survival itself.
Recognizing these patterns is important because coercive control rarely begins with extreme violence. It often begins with repeated behaviors that slowly normalize deprivation, dependency, fear, and humiliation.
Research has consistently linked food insecurity and chronic deprivation to significant mental, developmental, and physical health consequences in children.
A 2025 national study published in JAMA Network Open found that children with chronic conditions experienced significantly higher rates of food insecurity than children without chronic conditions. The study reported particularly high rates among children with diabetes, intellectual disabilities, developmental disorders, anxiety, and depression. hill_2025_oi_250956_1758301014.15857.pdf
Researchers also found that food insecurity was strongly associated with worsening mental health outcomes, chronic stress, anxiety, depression symptoms, and developmental challenges in children.
Studies examining childhood development have additionally linked food insecurity to:
• impaired emotional regulation,
• behavioral difficulties,
• developmental delays,
• toxic stress responses,
• weakened immune function,
• gastrointestinal disorders,
• and poorer long-term physical and mental health outcomes.
The effects can become even more severe when food itself is intentionally weaponized through deprivation, allergy exposure, humiliation, or medical neglect. Repeated exposure to foods that trigger allergic reactions, inflammation, gastrointestinal distress, or medically documented sensitivities can result in hospitalization, malnutrition, dehydration, feeding aversion, and long-term digestive complications.
Researchers increasingly describe food insecurity as a form of chronic toxic stress capable of affecting brain development, emotional functioning, and long-term health outcomes in children.
Understanding how food can be weaponized helps communities better recognize hidden forms of abuse; especially in situations involving children, vulnerable adults, survivors of domestic violence, and individuals with medical or dietary needs.
