Pioneering Nutrition Research
We conduct novel research exploring nutrition and diet of people experiencing homelessness, and provide insights and consultancy to organisations to help improve dietary outcomes for people reliant on food services.
Our first study was funded by the British Dietetics Association (BDA) and completed in partnership with University College London (UCL) across 18 hostels in London with 200 participants, revealing a high prevalence of malnutrition (79%), food insecurity (61.5%), and poor dietary quality for people experiencing homelessness. We use findings to inform improvements to FEAST meal services and healthy eating programmes, and share results with the wider voluntary sector in effort to promote dietary health for service users..
For details of our results and recommendations, please see our study abstract and graphical abstract and headline findings below, as well as our blog for the Food Foundation. Further publications will detail the proportion of Ultra Processed Foods consumed as part of the diet of people experiencing homelessness.
Our founder Hannah Style is a Fellow at the Pathway Faculty for Homeless and Inclusion Health and co-chairs the newly established Pathway Nutrition Committee (PNC) with Ghislaine Swinburn, also a leading dietitian in homeless and inclusion health. The PNC network survey results demonstrate the gaps in the food system serving people experiencing homelessness, and the unanimous desire for developments and standards regarding nutrition for people experiencing homelessness. Recently, the PNC has been awarded funding by the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (BAPEN) to develop a consensus statement on a population-specific nutrition screening tool designed for use in health and care settings. This will be pivotal in supporting hostels, charities and clinical teams to detect nutritional risk effectively.
Hannah is also sits on research steering groups to promote dietary health for people experiencing homelessness, including the Pathway diabetes steering group. As part of this group, she supported resource development including the training module and fact sheet on nutrition. Additionally, she is an advisor to the prevention programme funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR).
FEAST partners with various prestigious academic and professional organisations to promote dietary health of people experiencing homelessness. FEAST is working with UCL and service users to increase awareness of the relationship between diet and mental health among adults using food banks and co-create information resources, and with King’s College London (KCL) and London Metropolitan University (LMU) dietetic faculties to conduct annual service evaluations with undergraduate students.
FEAST has been nominated for The British Nutrition Foundation community award twice, and also by The Caroline Walker Trust. We intend to collaborate further to support the development of realistic and population-specific dietary guidance..
FEAST With Us and UCL research project:
What is the nutrition status of homeless populations resident in temporary accommodation in London?
Funded by the British Dietetic Association, this novel research explores the diet and nutrition of people experiencing homelessness and has been conducted in partnership between FEAST and University College London. It is known that people experiencing homelessness experience worse dietary health outcomes than the general population, and there is a paucity in the literature investigating the related factors.
The research aimed to identify the prevalence of malnutrition, obesity, food insecurity and mental ill health amongst people who are homeless, as well as examine the nutritional excesses and deficits in diets of homeless people compared with the general population and national healthy eating guidelines.
Get in touch if you want to be updated when the full paper is published. We are looking for more places to disseminate the findings. Be in touch with info@feastwithus.org.uk if you want to have the findings shared with your team, service, hostel, or organisation.
