Dr. Chelsea Wentworth will examine women's roles in changing customary feasting patterns so that feasts can serve as a coping mechanism for children's food insecurity in urban areas of Vanuatu. Vanuatu, a South Pacific Island nation, currently experiences high rates of childhood malnutrition related to household food insecurity, with the highest incidence of malnutrition in children under age five occurring in the urban capital of Port Vila. Drawing on feminist qualitative research methods, she will demonstrate that one method children employ to cope with food insecurity is by eating lafet, or special occasions of community feasting. Dr. Wentworth's research illustrates that both women who serve food at feasts and children who attend the feasts simply to eat are changing the customary meaning of feasting in urban contexts. Data presented here demonstrate the importance of interdisciplinary perspectives conjoining anthropological, biomedical and public health research to better address the challenges presented in the study of food insecurity and feasting in urban Vanuatu.   Results implicate a significant relationship between the seemingly disparate phenomenon of feasting and food insecurity, which calls for a reexamination of the role of feasting in the study of malnutrition.