Trash Pandas REDO — Daniel Santos Design

Hunger
Strike
Project Overview: We explore the complex systems behind food — how it’s grown, processed, distributed, and accessed. We look at how something as basic and essential as eating has become deeply connected to issues of affordability, inequality, and sustainability.

Project According to the FAO, food insecurity means lacking access to enough safe, nutritious food to maintain an active and healthy life.

Role
System Mapping , Data Visulization and
Research Designer
DeliverableCase Study and Interactive Map
TeamDaniel Santos, Michael O’Regan, Sydney Yeom, Maria Lucia Benavides

Research

Prototype

Project summary

The Problem Campus/Research Question

how do accessibility and affordability of healthy food in the GTA influence post-secondary students' physical health, mental wellbeing, and academic outcomes?

What is food insecurity?

A situation where some people do not have access to sufficient quantities of safe and nutritious food."

Who does thie Effect?

York's undergraduate population skews heavily toward students with the least buffer against a bad food environment: mostly commuters, without a meal plan to fall back on, and disproportionately students of color already facing other structural barriers.

A list couldn't explain why the problem
repeats — a loop could

We modeled the system rather than listing findings: a Meadows-style stock-and-flow diagram (inputs, internals, outputs, feedback loops) showing how a student's food environment shapes academic performance over time (Meadows, 2008).

The campus itself is "a food swamp"

Not just a food desert (too little food) but a food swamp — disproportionate access to fast food relative to healthy options.

"Low-income areas where there is disproportionately high access to convenience stores, fast food outlets, and other sources of unhealthy foods."

60.7% of York's food outlets are fast food, versus 14.3% dining hall and 16.1% fast casual. Healthier options exist but are more expensive, less
conveniently located, and overshadowed by major chains (Ploeg, 2010).

Key Findings:

Access shapes diet quality
More nutritious-food access strongly associates with higher-quality diets.

Physical health/metabolic stability Deficiencies and excesses both disrupt metabolism and sleep.

Poor nutrition compounds stressTime/financial pressure pushes poor choices, raising stress and cognitive strain.

Food insecurity undermines success Linked to fatigue, impaired focus, higher dropout risk.

Campus systems reflect inequality Profit-driven food systems limit access, hitting marginalized students hardest.

Follow the money

The "broader implications" finding above isn't speculation — it's a matter of public record.

In 2022, York signed a five-year food-services contract with Compass Group Canada, estimated at $20 million in annual gross sales.

What already exists

Before designing anything new, we mapped what York already offers — the map needed to point students toward these, not duplicate them.

A flat list proved the problem — it couldn't explain it

FIRST DRAFT A flat list of findings by topic — shows the problem exists, not why it persists.

Refined Direction:A systems map plus an interactive, outlet-by-outlet rating tool. Based on team critique that the first draft "proved the problem but not the mechanism.

Choosing the harder map that tells the truth

A · Static infographic + fast to produce − shows symptoms, not causes

B · Interactive outlet-rating map (chosen Direction) + actionable at the point of decision − needed real per-outlet research

Why we went with option B

The brief needed to explain why the problem persists and give students something to act on standing outside a specific building — a map is
the only format that does both.

Rating real outlets against 10 criteria

Every campus food outlet got scored on the same rubric — nutritional value, price vs. nutritional quality, availability of healthy options, portion size, student preferences, cultural & dietary accommodation, frequency, access and location, food-insecurity impact, and sustainability — rolled into one overall rating.

Lorem Ipsum...

Built to be clicked through,
not just read

Interactive outlet-rating mapClick any pin to see its full 10-criteria breakdown.

Link to Prototype