The social conditions faced by homeless youth may result in no or poor access to nutritious food. This can be defined as food insecurity, where an individual has an inability to consume an adequate diet (Health Canada, 2012). For young people living on the streets, education becomes an obstacle, which can lead to unstable jobs and therefore inconsistent incomes. They have to settle for low-value jobs to earn enough to feed themselves daily – the day-in-the-mouth concept. Therefore, the options available to homeless youth in terms of food are very limited. When purchasing food, they tend to choose cheaper alternative foods that are usually unhealthy and have little or no nutritional value for the body. Examples of these types of foods include pizza, hamburgers, or ready-to-eat perishable foods (Dachner & Tarasuk, 2002). From our daily experience, it can be said that too many unhealthy foods can cause long-term health problems, ranging from diabetes to heart disease. Eventually, the immune system weakens and serious complications can occur for the individual. It may be difficult for homeless youth to access health services; many times the symptoms of these diseases can go undiagnosed. Sometimes, homeless youth tend to go for longer periods of time without food, resulting in intense hunger. Hunger is the consequence of food insecurity. It is the resulting feeling of discomfort, weakness, illness and pain – all of which play an important role in young people's health (Jovanovic, Lesson 9). Although free food is available through charitable food programs such as food banks, these may not be accessible and travel may not be an option, especially if they suffer from... middle of paper ......vanovic, Lesson 9 ). While they may help reduce hunger, this only maintains the problem of food insecurity among homeless youth, but does nothing to actually solve the problem. Therefore, increasing the number of food banks is not an adequate solution. Many times you will find that the people who take advantage of food banks are not the ones who would benefit the most. Homeless youth tend to feel embarrassed and ashamed about having to rely on food banks. They may believe there is a stigma attached to being homeless and using food banks, so they avoid it altogether (Jovanovic, Lesson 9). This could also be the reason why they avoid using the healthcare services available to them. Having to deal with health problems, stress in dealing with instability and not being able to predict what the future holds, many young people develop mental illnesses.