Apr 05, 2014 10:36 AM EDT By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Children with fathers that are involved in their lives have a lower risk of going hungry, according to a recent study.

Researchers at Rutgers University found that fathers who don't live with their children but maintain involvement in their child's life can actually lower their son's or daughter's risk of food insecurity by 10 to 12 percent. And if the father provides support beyond money, such as gifts, groceries and other offerings, the child's risk of food insecurity may be further reduced.

  "These results add to mounting evidence that nonresident father involvement, outside of the formal child support system, positively affects children and must be considered in policy discussions related to child support, child poverty and child well-being," Lenna Nepomnyaschy, assistant professor in the School of Social Work, said in a statement.

For the study, researchers used two nationally representative longitudinal panel data sets from the Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics which followed children through early and middle childhood and assessed economic stability and food insecurity in the home, the researchers found this trend to be consistent across both sets of data.

"For [financially] vulnerable families, fathers' contributions of time and material resources have a positive effect on food security. Having in kind support may help the mother to re-allocate her resources to provide more food for the household," Nepomnyaschy said.  "The father's visits may reduce her stress and enhance her parenting, providing her the resources and time to grocery shop and cook meals."

In their study, researchers said more than 1 in 10 children in the US experience food insecurity and children in single mother families are at greatest risk, being three times as likely to not get enough food, than children in two-parent families.  In 2012, 21.6 percent of US children lived in households that were food insecure, defined by the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture as having limited access to adequate food due to lack of money.

This project was funded by a grant from the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research through funding by the US Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service.

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