Young adults, globally, have the lowest quality diet compared to any other age group. Low-quality diets, if sustained, are a significant health risk that can lead to or exacerbate cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. However, young adults in dietary research are rarely studied as a distinct age group. Consequently, little is known about the young adult food experience. Furthermore, research seldomly examines young adult diets using social work perspectives, applying socioecological frameworks with an aim towards social justice. As a result, little is known about whether and how psychosocial factors deeply relevant to young adulthood affect their diet.More research is needed to understand the young adult food experience, how these food experiences interact to predict dietary quality, and whether the strength of these mechanisms differs by poverty levels. To fill this gap, a series of secondary-data analyses were conducted with a nationally representative young adult subset of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The dissertation has three aims.Aim 1 describes food security, food-related beliefs and values, and dietary quality among young adults and examines differences in these food-related variables by demographics and depression symptomatology. This aim provides a landscape of the US young adult food experience.Aim 2 examines how depression, food security, and food-related beliefs and values are related to young adults' dietary quality. This aim utilizes structural equation modeling to test a theoretical and evidence-based model to examine pathways that predict young adult dietary quality .Aim 3 examines whether these relationships vary by federal income poverty levels. This aim includes poverty as a moderator to further examine significant pathways that emerge from Aim 2.There were several key findings. Food insecurity was negatively associated with dietary quality through depression symptomatology. Furthermore, there was a vicious cycle of food insecurity and dietary quality among low-income young adults, where higher levels of food insecurity were associated with increased depression symptoms, which in turn was further associated with higher food insecurity. Beliefs and values were also associated with dietary quality. Specifically, eating at restaurants to socialize and the importance of nutrition when grocery shopping were positive predictors of dietary quality. Additionally, believing that eating at restaurants is cheaper than cooking at home was a negative predictor of dietary quality only for higher-income young adults. Food insecurity, depression, and food-related beliefs and values are significant psychosocial predictors of young adult dietary quality. Tangible ways in which social workers can contribute to the food justice movement are discussed, based on these findings, through implications for social work practice, research, policy, and the social work profession. Overall, social work perspectives and skills are necessary but lacking within interdisciplinary and systematic efforts to comprehensively address dietary disparities that disproportionately affect vulnerable young adults. Study limitations are also discussed before concluding with an overall summary of the dissertation.