Written by: Emmanuel Dubure & Kristen DiFilippo, PhD, RDN
The strength of our military force is contingent upon nutrition readiness, or having consistent access to adequate, health-promoting food. However, military families may face particular challenges that impact this readiness c, including frequent relocations and changes in household income (Jennings & Patton, 2025). In 2018 and 2020, a study comparing the US military and civilian populations a study showed 25.3% of the sample reported experiencing food insecurity, compared with 10.1% of the demographically equivalent civilian adult population (Rabbitt & Beymer, 2024).
Rapid-response resources, like installation food pantries and food distributions, provide invaluable support during emergency situations (Military OneSource, 2026a). However, the ultimate mission is long-term self-sufficiency. Military family service providers are uniquely positioned to turn these immediate touchpoints into springboards for ongoing stability, connecting service members with tools that support lifelong nutrition and financial readiness.
Moving from Emergency Aid to Economic Stability: What Military Family Service Providers Can Do
Emergency food aid is essential for ensuring nutrition readiness during crises. However, sustaining readiness requires addressing the underlying causal factors while maintaining effective emergency food assistance systems to support those in need. The following strategies can be employed by military family service providers to help families improve economic stability and nutrition readiness and reduce reliance on emergency aid programs.
Improving Household Income
Food insecurity is more prevalent among low-income households in the United States (Rabbitt et al., 2025). Military spouses may face employment challenges related to frequent relocations and the demands of military life, which can affect household economic stability (Burke & Miller, 2018; Jennings & Patton, 2025). Workforce development, education, vocational training, and access to stable employment opportunities for military spouses represent important strategies for strengthening household economic resources and reducing the risk of food insecurity. Programs such as SpouseWorks, which support military spouses through employment assistance, career counseling, education and training, and professional development, may be particularly relevant in this context (Military OneSource, 2026b).
Strengthening Family Support Programs
Military households may experience financial strain when the combined costs of basic necessities exceed available household resources (Wang & Pullman, 2019). Although active-duty service members receive on-base housing or a Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), the cost of living can vary across duty locations, and households may face competing expenses for food, transportation, utilities, childcare, and other necessities (Jennings & Patton, 2025). In high-cost-of-living areas, military family-support programs help address financial strain by providing financial counseling and connecting families with installation-based and community resources for essential expenses, including utilities (O’Neal et al., 2026). These strategies may help preserve household resources for food and reduce the risk of food insecurity.
Budgeting for Health-Related Expenses
Research demonstrates strong associations between chronic illness, medical expenses, and food insecurity (Berkowitz et al., 2019; Gregory & Coleman-Jensen, 2017; Treffeisen et al., 2025; Weaver & Fasel, 2018). Healthcare costs can force households to reduce spending on food and other necessities. Active-duty service members and their families have relatively comprehensive healthcare coverage through TRICARE; however, some health-related products and services may fall outside covered benefits and require out-of-pocket spending (Military OneSource, 2026c). Service members expenses may include dietary supplements and other health and wellness products. Dietary supplement use is common among military service members. A large-scale military health study found that about 74% of service members used a dietary supplement at least once a week, and 40% of users took five or more supplements per week (National Institutes of Health, 2024). For households with limited financial resources, this may compete with resources available for adequate food. Military financial readiness and family-support programs could address this potential strain by incorporating health-related expenditures into budgeting, helping service members distinguish covered from non-covered health expenses, and connecting families with appropriate healthcare and food-assistance resources when financial hardship is identified. This support may prove especially beneficial for service members who do not have previous experience managing financial resources.
Connecting Families to Wrap-Around Services
Food banks may have potential to support long-term food security by expanding beyond emergency food distribution and serving as connections to broader, community-based social and economic resources. Many food banks are expanding beyond emergency food distribution by developing community partnerships, offering nutrition-focused services, and connecting individuals with additional supports, including SNAP enrollment assistance and referrals to health and social services (Carpenter et al., 2022; Jeyakumar et al., 2026; Wetherill et al., 2019).
For military households, food banks may also serve as points of connection to military-specific and community-based resources, including installation food pantries, military family-support programs, and food and financial assistance programs available to service members and their families (Jennings & Patton, 2025). These approaches reflect a shift toward addressing the complex social and economic factors underlying food insecurity.
Although emergency food aid is vital during crises, income support and integrated social services offer a sustainable way to address the root causes of food insecurity and reduce long-term reliance on emergency assistance.
References
Berkowitz, S. A., Basu, S., Gundersen, C., & Seligman, H. K. (2019). State-level and county-level estimates of health care costs associated with food insecurity. Preventing Chronic Disease, 16, E90.
Burke, J., & Miller, A. R. (2018). The effects of job relocation on spousal careers: Evidence from military change of station moves. Economic Inquiry, 56(2), 1261–1277. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12529
Carpenter, A., Kuchera, A. M., & Krall, J. S. (2022). Connecting families at risk for food insecurity with nutrition assistance through a clinical-community direct referral model. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 54(2), 181–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2021.09.014
Gregory, C. A., & Coleman-Jensen, A. (2017). Food insecurity, chronic disease, and health among working-age adults (Economic Research Report Number 235). https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.261813
Jennings, S. J., & Patton, A. L. (2025). A scoping review of food insecurity in active duty military families. Military Medicine, 190(Suppl 3), 31–39. https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usaf456
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National Institutes of Health. (2024). ODS Update: Dietary supplement use among military personnel. https://ods.od.nih.gov/pubs/ODS_Update_May_2024.pdf
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