To ask why there is such food poverty.

[Helendee]

Please no flaming as I genuinely am seeking answers as to why so many children are going to school hungry these days.
This is not a critical or inflammatory post, I just want to know what’s gone wrong.
Obviously many of us are struggling financially because of Covid but food poverty was a huge problem before that.
Is it that benefit levels are too low to adequately feed our children?
What can we do to ameliorate the situation?

I mentioned earlier on this thread (or another similar one). A while back I was in a small local convenience store. They're was almost no fresh veg at all, only a very limited (and I stress limited) amount of frozen veg. It was mostly instant cook processed stuff, largely beige carb based. All more expensive actually than a larger supermarket but there wasn't one within walking distance in that area. As others have said food deliveries tend to have quite high minimum order spends.

Then there's the many people living without proper cooking or storage facilities. Lots of people have no (or only tiny) freezers.

A loaf of white bread and a large packet w of white pasta is cheap and accessible. Often the cheaper range of food is less healthy. Baked beans for example. The low salt low sugar versions are more expensive.

Some people might not know how to cook (here's where internet access comes in handy what with YouTube lessons, etc). However many more know perfectly well what to do but lack the means.

I think there is no answer really. There is 2 people I know very well that have diff lifestyles etc
1 had 3 kids on benefits due to never working all kids at school but has a good access to their dads who provide also ( not together ) but the kids have been on 2 holidays abroad this year, the mum smokes and drinks and they have nice trainers etc who are entitled to FSM and in her words complaint that it’s only
15.00 per child
A few days after returning from holiday asked to lend 20.00 of us for gas.
This is an example of poor management.

Another one of our close friends has
2 young kids with no other help is private renting in London and benefit housing cap means there is a gap between the rent and allowance. She struggles day to day with transport for school runs, food , gas and electric. They do not have any luxury really. This is the families who really do need a better system

Myself I fall in the middle I haven’t got a high life etc however I am lucky that I am able to afford food. We are entitled to FSM but don’t really need it in half terms etc as I can afford the food the week.

However the bottom line is no matter who the parents are children should not be left hungry.

All of the above. Also:

• a failure by the state to ensure feckless fathers parents support their children. Why are these men people allowed to skip away from their responsibilities once the relationship ends leaving the other parent to struggle on in poverty? Other countries have far better mechanisms for ensuring this doesnt happen.

Also, and more controversially a lot of fair weather planning. People tailoring their lifestyle and family size to the assumption that all will be well - work will always be available, sickness wont happen, relationships wont fail. To a certain extent we all need to do this or we'd never do anything but the idea of a bit of money set aside for a rainy day, or saving to buy something rather than maxing out the credit cards has rather gone by the by.

Haven't read the whole thread - sorry - but curious as to what percentage of households don't have any cooking facilities? I see reference to 'lots' and 'many' but how many is that?

It's more commonly limited, rather than no facilities.

Tiny freezer compartments as part of the fridge, very small kitchen space with few storage cupboards, shared kitchen facilities (HMOs, temporary accommodation, etc), cooker or fridge or freezer broken and no money to fix or replace, no money for the electric or gas required to do the cooking.

This gives an idea of how many with no facilities at all.

1.9 million no cooker.
2.8 million no freezer.

www.turn2us.org.uk/About-Us/Media-Centre/Press-releases-and-comments/Millions-across-the-UK-are-living-without-househol#:~:text=The%20analysis%20highlights%20the%20true,under%20%C2%A335%2C000%20a%20year)

The absence of cookers or fridges is usually connected either to chaotic lifestyle or emergency accommodation. People of all ages need more stable secure homes and familiar neighbours for mutual support and social relationships. There need to be more community connections. People can make good friends across generations, replacing scattered birth family links. An isolated old person might welcome a chat and a helping hand and/or a cooked meal, and an isolated younger person might welcome being useful, and cooking extra portions. Whatever grandparents would do to help their own children and grandchildren, they could do as 'adopted' grandparents.
Could communities by design be the answer to improving quality of lives all round, at the same time as helping with housing shortage and the gulf between social housing, private renting, and private owning?

Putting a stop to the segregation of generations is important. Redundant offices would be ideal for individual self contained flats with individual private balcony gardens, but with the opportunity to mingle in extended 'family by choice' groups in communal areas and gardens/shared large balconies.

The drawback would be that if people are under a shared roof, albeit with their own self contained flats, they need security from antisocial activity or 'churn' of a stream of changing neighbours, sub letting, and even uncontrolled noisy children. Children could be at the 'children's end' of the corridor, ideally on one side of the stairs or lift shaft, to give a gap where even the best soundproofing might fail. Antisocial behaviour or subletting would require a clear contract and good c.c.t.v., and an independent manager to enforce rules firmly, avoiding ill feeling within the 'family'.

This discussion is now 23 pages long so i must apologise for not reading the whole of it but ive got the general flavour.

The NHS and public health England state that 1/3rd of children leaving primary school to move up to secondary education is either overweight or obese. I havent ploughed through the data to find the proportion who are underweight/malnourished etc but it would be of interest to do so.

I am a child of the 60s.

Are we really saying that things in the UK now are worse than they were more than 50 years ago? Surely not.

I was brought up on a council estate with two siblings in a broken home. Not once did we starve or go without food. OK so it wasnt Aberdeen Angus fillet steak but we had food and were adequately nourished and that in an era when the only thing close to a takeaway might have been the local chippy. I dont recall eating there as it would have been too expensive.

So what has changed? why ,as were are lead to believe, are there throngs of apparently starving kids just because they are off for school hols for a week or so?

My work causes me to travel all over my major city and also into some rural areas. Im in and out of peoples homes across the spectrum of socio economic groups and i have yet to see an emaciated child.

@20mum
That's a very good post.
Mass council housing but along the lines you describe. As you say secure stable housing in a familiar supportive community environment is the foundation for everything else. What you describe sounds ideal.

I was thinking more in terms of an apple v packet of crisps.
Oats v cereal.
I'm not much of a carb eater so wouldn't think of pasta and white bread as food. The pasta maybe at a pinch.

Takeways around here are cheap. You couldn't cook it for the same price. What I tried was not good, although there are nicer takeaways just up the road that are better.

Isn't it more that people have no idea of what a healthy diet should be like?

This is why I do not understand why people still push for more people to come here. The government should address these issues with the people who are here first with housing and all health needs and education. I do not think the UK will ever catch up as things stand now. It is obvious that the wages are so low that people prefer to be in benefits as some people have already commented here. This is so wrong.

@Arnoldthecat

This discussion is now 23 pages long so i must apologise for not reading the whole of it but ive got the general flavour.

The NHS and public health England state that 1/3rd of children leaving primary school to move up to secondary education is either overweight or obese. I havent ploughed through the data to find the proportion who are underweight/malnourished etc but it would be of interest to do so.

I am a child of the 60s.

Are we really saying that things in the UK now are worse than they were more than 50 years ago? Surely not.

I was brought up on a council estate with two siblings in a broken home. Not once did we starve or go without food. OK so it wasnt Aberdeen Angus fillet steak but we had food and were adequately nourished and that in an era when the only thing close to a takeaway might have been the local chippy. I dont recall eating there as it would have been too expensive.

So what has changed? why ,as were are lead to believe, are there throngs of apparently starving kids just because they are off for school hols for a week or so?

My work causes me to travel all over my major city and also into some rural areas. Im in and out of peoples homes across the spectrum of socio economic groups and i have yet to see an emaciated child.

I don't think there are throngs of starving kids, there are some that are slipping through the net and we need to make sure that doesn't happen. I think the issue at the moment is that really nothing has changed in the income of those reliant on benefits long term, in fact basic universal credit has increased by £80 + a month since lockdown. However there are now also large numbers of kids from families that have suddenly gone from one or maybe two wage earners in the household to no-one earning and if outgoings can't be suddenly reduced, they quickly get into a mess. If you've got a mortgage ( and lets face it many have large mortgages) and you both lose your jobs, there is no help on UC to pay a mortgage and you are going to risk losing your home very quickly. So do you prioritize your mortgage or food ? Not quite so bad if you rent as Uc will cover that although maybe not all your rent. So I guess we are facing a situation where thousands of children are living in a household where income has suddenly reduced very significantly.

@Arnoldthecat

This discussion is now 23 pages long so i must apologise for not reading the whole of it but ive got the general flavour.

The NHS and public health England state that 1/3rd of children leaving primary school to move up to secondary education is either overweight or obese. I havent ploughed through the data to find the proportion who are underweight/malnourished etc but it would be of interest to do so.

I am a child of the 60s.

Are we really saying that things in the UK now are worse than they were more than 50 years ago? Surely not.

I was brought up on a council estate with two siblings in a broken home. Not once did we starve or go without food. OK so it wasnt Aberdeen Angus fillet steak but we had food and were adequately nourished and that in an era when the only thing close to a takeaway might have been the local chippy. I dont recall eating there as it would have been too expensive.

So what has changed? why ,as were are lead to believe, are there throngs of apparently starving kids just because they are off for school hols for a week or so?

My work causes me to travel all over my major city and also into some rural areas. Im in and out of peoples homes across the spectrum of socio economic groups and i have yet to see an emaciated child.

And also obesity is a sign of malnourishment often - kids fed on cheap crap because it's cheaper than healthy food.

I think that children not moving about as much, not eating at mealtimes
only, portion sizes, and the carb heavy food and snacks are all factors in childhood obesity.

Children are pacified with snacks instead of a piece of fruit. Children help themselves to snacks and pop.

Genes are blamed, yet my slim friends eat differently to my oveweight friends. I can think of a family where the parents are rotund but their kids are slim. The difference is lifestyle.

Nothing to do with food poverty, I know.

Im undecided on this but having lived on low wages, or sometimes benefits, the months November, December, January and February are hard. It's not so much food as heating. Some people receive an extra tenner I think, but only if the temperature stays below freezing for 5 days. Something like that. It's a pittance really.

You can eat, stew and dumplings etc, and slow cookers are not that expensive to buy or run, but heating in winter is the killer and many UK houses are badly designed/built. For families there is also the expense of Xmas on top of winter fuel expenses.

Children are pacified with snacks instead of a piece of fruit. Children help themselves to snacks and pop

True. People eat utter garbage these days

@SheepandCow' thank you for liking my idea.
But not 'council housing' in the old way. Long ago, it worked, sort of. Now, it is a faulty idea.
There is a crazy lottery where some people can get a mortgage (not suitable for many situations because it assumes vast debt will never be unaffordable and housing will never be in negative equity and income will never drop, and if it does, the occupant will be hidden homeless, having to sofa surf if the debts are overwhelming)

Others can get a private tenancy (not suitable either, in many situations, because it has a virtual absence of security of tenure, (two months and then on the pavement, with no fault eviction) and because either the occupant cannot get housing benefit as a punishment for having modest private savings, or, again, because it too has no allowance for the fact that income may suddenly drop, at which point the occupant may resort to sofa surfing or be otherwise hidden homeless )

The third option is absurdly overgenerous, but absurdly unfair. Anyone with a supply of children, or come out of prison, or a street sleeping junkie, or mental health patient, or learning disabled, or able to claim domestic abuse, will be likely to have charities and advocates organisations to assist them to the top of the housing list. Some will be told to go back where they came from, if the local authority can find a link with a previous council area, but they can't say that to a migrant of course. Increasing population and increasing understanding of how the rules work has reduced the supply of council tenancies available. Some, now, will go through prolonged temporary accommodation arrangements while waiting. Allocations are like a roulette, frequently unsuitable, inaccessible, in the wrong area or otherwise hateful to the recipient.

But the moment the lottery ticket win of a council tenancy is granted, it is granted for the rest of the tenant's life. A four bedroom house might be given, but the children might all be taken to live with the ex, shortly afterwards (I know one such case). If the occupying tenant lives to be a hundred years old, they never need leave. If that wasn't illogical and unfair enough, the tenancy lottery winner has another eight inexplicable golden perks.

1.S/He will have a reliable landlord, unlike private landlords, keeping the property to a standard. 2. Unlike private tenants, s/he will be unafraid to report need of repair, or even dangerous situations, .3. unlike private tenants, s/he will never be evicted 4. s/he will pay an artificially low rent, half or even a tenth of the open market value of the property 5. s/he can buy the home at an artificially reduced price 6. It makes no difference if the required housing need conditions vanish shortly after the tenancy is granted 7. It makes no difference if the required conditions of poverty vanish shortly after the tenancy is granted 8. Only a minority of tenants are council tenants, yet the invariable lazy assumption is that all who need a roof over their heads can choose between nipping into the nearest estate agent to get a mortgage and a set of house keys, or else nip into the council offices and come out with a life tenancy and the keys to a council house, therefore any tax funded schemes for insulation etc. will be for home owners or for council tenants.

Private tenants are 'deemed' out of existence. So, and even more disastrously, are hidden homeless (but they are mainly women, so they don't count, nor do old people, disabled people and desperate people who have committed the sin of having life savings and no pension or assets or home ownership).

@whatdoesthismeaneh

I just ran the benefits calculator for me as though I would be unemployed with my son living in a 2 bed flat on the same road I live on now. I would have a tax free income of £18k, approximately £9k would go on rent. Another £312 on council tax. I imagine utilities in small flat would be about £1200 a year, tv licence is £160, broadband is £250 a year. Mobile is say £250 a year too. Netflix is £72 basic. That leaves about £560 a month. Knock off 160 a month for clothes, transport and toiletries. Leaves £100 a week for food and other things.

That doesn't seem an impossible situation to me. I can cook extremely well on £40 a week with spices, fresh meat and fish and fruit and veg. I could certainly save money out of that for presents at Christmas, I could afford a cheap gym membership.
Okay that wouldnt stretch to going on holidays but then I dont think the government should be paying people to go on holiday. It seems like an adequate safety net to me.

Ok, so you have just lost your job and have to cover 5 weeks with no income before you start recieving money. Maybe you have a small amount of savings, but this will probably eat into them quite a bit? If you don't have savings, you are probably getting into debt in some way during this time. If you have lots of savings, you have to run these down before you can claim, btw.

Say the second month in, your fridge or freezer breaks? What do you do? Maybe you still have a small amount of savings, so you spend the rest of your savings on your new fridge, but maybe you don't? So you have to get it on credit from brighthouse or somewhere. This then becomes an additional outgoing.

The month after, your son is really ill, so you miss an appointment at the job centre. You're sanctioned and have no money coming in for a couple of weeks. You have no savings left. What do you do then?

The figures you quote I agree work if you never hit an unexpected expense or problem, but how many of us get through even a few months without some kind of unexpected expense? £100 a week does not leave a lot of wiggle room, IMO?

And then there are unexpected or even planned (but not moveable) large expenses.
Child outgrows expensive trainers or school blazer: £40 or more.
Car needs MOT: £55
Bus pass needs renewing: a London bus pass is £81/month or £848/year.

I don't believe all these people who say they know families who haven't worked for generations. The Rowntree trust study in 2012 pretty much proved this didn't exist: www.jrf.org.uk/report/are-cultures-worklessness-passed-down-generations

Therefore, I can only assume people who say that they see these sorts of people regularly in the foodbank where they volunteer are lying about other things as well.

I don't believe all these people who say they know families who haven't worked for generations.

What's that saying, @SansaSnark? Oh, that's it. "You're entitled to your own opinion but you aren't entitled to your own facts." The fact that you don't believe it is neither here nor there. A couple of branches of my own family have multigenerational unemployment. It's not that unusual in certain locations.

A couple of branches of my own family have multigenerational unemployment. It's not that unusual in certain locations.

Anecdata the go to of fools, liars or people with an agenda

Because some parents prioritise their addictions and vices over their childrens welfare?

When my husband was a child he had a mother with severe mental illness. She spent their money on cigarettes; the pub and Indian takeaways for one.
Unfortunately DH had no dad, as he had passed away very young.
The six kids had no food or they had poor quality food.

When dh’s mum got her benefits; when she received inheritance; when she received charity money, she spent it on really stupid things, like a fancy TV, exotic pets or more Sky channels. She never saved anything or spent on the children.

DH doesn’t hate her for it as he recognises that his mum was actually mentally ill, so all the money in the world wouldn’t have helped his situation.
Their home was dirty and when I met him at 15, all he owned in his wardrobe was one jumper and one pair of jeans. He had a 30 year old mattress on the floor.

My parents began to buy him clothes and they allowed him to stay with us quite often, which I understand now, as looking back they were strict and that wasn’t usual for them. They recognised that he needed help and I think this is another reason why our relationship is so strong now, because we were the first people to care about him.

Growing up we had very little money. My father prioritised buying the biggest house he could over feeding and clothing his children properly. We couldn’t afford holidays and I wore hand me downs until I got a part time job at16. Food was very basic indeed. We never had puddings or biscuits , ever. All the money went into the mortgage . I actually think that was neglect. If they had money, they spent it on themselves . Many other parents are selfish unfortunately.

Anecdata the go to of fools, liars or people with an agenda

None of the above. Nor am I presenting this as "data". Simply stating that "I don't believe" does not equate to "This is incorrect/lies."