Food poverty in the UK is reaching crisis levels. One in four children are currently living in poverty, and whilst the UK may be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, it also has one of the highest rates of childhood food insecurity in Europe. The sad reality of it is that the government is failing the children of this country in an incredibly dangerous way.
Malnutrition in childhood can lead to a multitude of health issues later in life, and not just physically – food insecurity can have long-lasting mental effects too. Additionally, while children live in poverty and food insecurity, so do their parents. As a parent, your job is to provide, and some parents simply do not earn enough to be able to do this.
the government is failing the children of this country in an incredibly dangerous way
This impacts on the whole family – in order to make sure their children have enough to eat, many parents will simply go hungry. This causes a chain reaction – when starving, we are less attentive, more easily fatigued and less able to function as well as we could do when we are well-fed.
In 2017, it was revealed that many nurses have to go to food banks in order to feed their children – their jobs rely on them being the best state they can be physically, so they can take as good care as they can of patients. As people who administer medication, a mistake could cost a life. In a society like ours, no one deserves to go hungry, and no one should – yet, people are.
Jack Monroe
Celebrity chefs claiming that ‘anyone can eat well cheaply!’ are not helping either. For people who say this, they are assuming that a family has at least some form of disposable income to put towards a food shop every week. For those in poverty, this is often not the case. Jack Monroe, the ‘Boostrap Chef’ knows this very acutely. In 2012, they typed out a blog post called ‘Hunger Hurts’. The blog post told the tale of their housing benefit being inexplicably £100 short. They had no food in, but some leftover pasta, some cheese and a lump of stem ginger, so they gave their child the pasta and brewed some ginger tea in an attempt to stop their hunger pains.
The next morning, they could only give their child a Weetabix mashed up with water. Again, Jack went hungry. Now, Jack is a successful chef who posts recipes that can be made incredibly cheaply – they often cost less that 50p per portion and are nutritionally healthy, too. Jack understands what it means to be in poverty because they were, but those who have never been in poverty often cannot comprehend what it means to exists in perpetual anxiety about your finances.
The number of people visiting food banks has also risen in recent years
Additionally, whilst these recipes are excellent and a lot more helpful than suggesting those in poverty simply live on rice and beans, food poverty is not being caused by those in poverty – it is caused by the government simply not providing for the people who live in this country. Those who collect benefits should not be going hungry, as the amount they are given should cover their living costs. The living wage should be a wage that can actually be lived on – especially for those with families.
The poor are not at fault for being poor, they aren’t going hungry because of some kind of moral failing, and therefore they should be helped out. It should be a source of deep shame that, in one of the richest countries in the world, the people who live here can
barely afford to live.
