“Breakfast has become a luxury”: the crisis has left millions of Britons starving
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New data show that millions of Britons have been forced to skip meals or go without food all day in recent months.
As the UK’s cost-of-living crisis deepened, almost one in five low-income families experienced food shortages in September, according to the charity Food Foundation, meaning more people went hungry these days than in the chaotic first weeks of the covid lockdowns. .
Hunger levels in the UK have more than doubled since January, with almost 10 million adults and 4 million children malnourished last month, sparking calls for stricter measures to protect vulnerable households, according to the foundation’s latest report.
These include demands for free school meals to be provided to 800,000 more children, amid reports of hungry schoolchildren stealing food from classmates, skipping lunch because they cannot afford school meals, or bringing packed lunches containing just one slice of bread.
Campaigners also denounced the government’s refusal to rule out a real cut in benefits, which is estimated to worsen the situation of already distressed families by hundreds of pounds a year. More than half of Universal Credit applicants struggled to get the food they needed.
Leading public health expert Sir Michael Marmot called the rise in hunger “worrisome” and told The Guardian that it would have detrimental health effects on society’s most disadvantaged, including increased cases of stress, mental illness, obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
A separate study of elementary schools by Chefs in Schools found that half of schools provide free meals to poor children who are not eligible for free school meals, more than two-thirds refer parents to food banks, and just under 50 % offer food packages for families.
“This study reveals the shocking reality that teachers face on a daily basis,” says Naomi Duncan, executive director of the charity. “The situation is terrible and getting worse. We urge the government to urgently extend the right to free school meals to all families receiving universal credit so that help reaches the children who need it most.”
The rise in food insecurity has been accompanied by a reduction in the purchasing power of low-income families caused by static wages and reduced benefits in recent years.
Faced with the choice of “keep warm or eat,” they often chose to limit food spending, though recent cutbacks have left some households too poor to afford both.
Since January, rising food and energy bills, combined with the withdrawal of Covid support, have fueled a sharp rise in hunger in the UK. Despite the introduction of government measures to support a living wage, more than two-thirds of food insecure families said they cook less or turn off refrigerators to cut energy costs.
Last month, more than 18% of British households said they had reduced or eliminated their meals, 11% said they didn’t eat despite feeling hungry, and 6% said they hadn’t eaten all day.
Families that are short of money are not only buying less food, they are turning away from healthier foods that they thought were unaffordable. More than half of those who are food insecure said they buy less fruit, and just under half say they buy fewer vegetables.
Children’s charity Barnardo’s said a fifth of parents surveyed have struggled to provide their children with enough food over the past year.
Separately, organizations representing more than 2,000 UK food banks said in a joint statement that they are struggling to meet “unprecedented” demand. Many food banks are operating at their limit, they say, leaving staff and volunteers “overworked and exhausted.”
A government spokesman said: “Our priority will always be to support the most vulnerable and we understand that people are struggling with rising prices, so we are protecting the millions most in need with direct payments of at least £1,200. In addition, vulnerable families in England are receiving support from the government’s Household Support Fund, which has been boosted by £500 million to help pay for basic necessities, and the latest figures show there are 200,000 fewer children in absolute poverty after spending on housing than in 2019. /twenty”.
The Guardian gives the example of one of the British women – Victoria, a single mother with a low income. For her, breakfast is a luxury; weekday lunches are largely a thing of the past. There are no more treats, desserts and cakes. For Victoria, this denial of her own food needs has one purpose: to ensure that her two primary school children do not go hungry.
“As a child, I often went hungry, I grew up in a low-income family, so I know what it’s like,” says Victoria. “I will never let this happen to my children so they will never skip meals. I’m trying to minimize the impact of poverty on them.”
Family dinners are an elaborate act where she makes sure the kids eat well. Breakfast for her is a cup of tea, maximum toast. She regularly skips lunch when they are at school. In the evening they eat together, usually a hot, nutritious homemade meal like spaghetti bolognese or chili con carne. Even then, she holds back. “I take a little from what they eat,” Victoria says.
She pays for refusing food with her health. “Most people don’t know what hunger is. They think, “Oh, how easy it is not to eat different kinds of food.” They don’t know about the empty feeling in the stomach, the ache in the joints, the mental fog, the feeling that your forehead is about to explode.”
It’s harder to sleep, harder to get out of bed in the morning, she says; your energy level drops, you become obsessed with food. “The more hungry you are, the more you think about it. There are times when I’m willing to do anything for food.”
This affects her mental health, Victoria admits. There are several emergency meals in the freezer that can be used when the pain and tension of hunger becomes too much.
For Victoria, who works on the Changing Realities academic project documenting low-income living, and for many parents she knows, being food insecure means giving up your needs for the sake of your children. “I trade my health for the well-being of my children,” she says.
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