Objective: We assessed whether college-student characteristics associate with food security and fruit and vegetable (FV) intake and whether these associations differ in students in housing with and without food provision.
Participants: 514 randomly-sampled students from a large, Midwestern, public university in 2012 and 2013 METHODS: Ordered logistic regression tested how student characteristics associate with food security. Linear regression tested how student characteristics associate with FV intake. Analyses were stratified by housing type - that is, housing with food provision (dormitory, fraternity/sorority house, cooperative) vs. housing without food provision.
Results: Only among those living in housing without food provision, males (p = 0.04), students without car access (p = 0.005), and those with marginal (p = 0.001) or low (p = 0.001) food security demonstrated lower FV intake.
Conclusions: Housing with food provision may buffer the effects of student characteristics on food.
Keywords: car access, college students, food insecurity, fruit and vegetable intake, student housing.