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 don’t think benefits are too low, lots claim far more in benefits than they would in a NMW job. Plus if there are children they would get child benefit which would cover the cost of feeding a child

What qualifies you to say that benefits aren’t too low? When did you last rely on benefits for an extended period of time?

Yes, benefits add up, but if you were in a minimum wage job, you would get benefits on top.

Child benefit for a second child is £10 a week. It might feed a child but children need more than that: clothing, warmth, travel costs for appointments (dr, dentist), toys and other entertainment, internet access for homework (or home learning if that kicks in again). That’s a lot more than £10 a week.

To survive on benefits or a low wage you need to be able to budget and many people can’t do this.

That is surely a failure on the part of the teachers instructing students in maths. I was a citizenship teacher in the days schools had them, and while we used holidays and houses as budgeting exercises for teaching purposes ( more enthralling than feeding the family each week) we explained everything mathematically and in health terms. It was a shrivelled approximation of the lost Home Economics O level. I think that should be brought back, at O level standard, and taught to every single student in year 9.

Absolutely nothing wrong with porridge or toast or egg and toast for breakfast - what planet are you living on?? Pulses are cheap and nutritious also. Idiot

How do you make toast and boil an egg if you can’t afford the fuel? Pulses may be cheap and nutritious but you need to understand what to do with them and have a cupboard full of basics (garlic, onion, stock cubes, herbs and spices) which so many simply don’t have. Idiot.

Others have put it well. There are excellent potential solutions. If it's a new idea, it will usually be better. (For example, the many insane notions of Bliar included the idea that if you give a child-owning junkie unlimited money, you can eliminate child poverty. Now that is logic poverty )
Sorry, but having a child you cannot deal with, because of your chaotic lifestyle, is not something the taxpayer can solve. I wasn't following it, but did notice one of the many You Tubers and bloggers had good ideas for excellent and tasty, varied and well balanced nutritious menus. She feeds a family on pennies. I don't know how how close she was to the shops, but greatly doubt she wouldn't find a way to manage. Actually, since Covid, there is more community spirit than ever, so fewer people need to be entirely isolated. Unless lockdown is extreme, presumably one mum can look after another's child, or one with a car can help one without.

As others say, it takes a bit of effort and a bit of knowledge. It probably needs a bit of mentoring and encouraging, too. The retired, the unemployed, the part timers, could all potentially befriend, so those who can't understand how to make their own meals from scratch can gain confidence. It's true some have no money in the meter, or no fridge, or freezer, or no cooker. The solutions need cooperation and lateral thinking. The ideas must be out there somewhere. Off the top of my head, I wonder if those who can travel to a food bank could also learn or teach cooking there? Could redundant chefs oversee it? Could church groups and others organise storage of portions of the cooked meals in loaned freezers in closed businesses?

For the sake of the planet, we all need to repair and re-use, so one person can be invaluable to many. Those who are not qualified electricians can nevertheless shadow and assist, to the point they are doing repairs which the qualified person can check and sign off. Those who can use a sewing machine can help those who can't. A second hand electrical item is as good as a new one, if the alternative is having nothing. A lot of expenditure is not truly essential, or even noticed.

@grassisjeweled

Start by making childcare free, subsided from birth, which includes home cooked, free meals.

Like progressive societies do I. E. Norway.

This would make a massive difference to so many people.

It would be a start if they could even manage to give all primary school children free lunches.

@TheFormerPorpentinaScamander

Of course a lot can be done on a budget if people have the cooking skills. I know it can because it's my life. But what about the people who don't have the cooking skills? And they do exist. And yes of course there are cooking instructions on things. But knowing that to cook rice you need x amount of water per x amount of rice doesn't actually tell you how to make it tasty. For example, I have a friend. She's a lovely lovely person, but her life circumstances have led her to a place where she's had 7 children with multiple men. Some were put into care. We were talking about meals a while back and she genuinely didn't realise that adding a stock cube to the rice made it tastier and more of a meal. Because the bag only said to use water. Seems like basic common sense to most of us. But clearly not.

We can’t raise benefits just because people don’t know how to cook rice. If they really wanted to learn, they would google it on their phone.

@murmurgam

They're rural areas, the outer suburbs of major cities, small council estates on the outskirts of towns. You might not have come across these places but I promise you they exist.

I'm interested in examples, as part of my job I've done analysis of various populations access to grocery shops and we never found these 'food deserts'

Rural areas, of course, were further away but they also weren't populated by people at risk of food poverty.

Poverty exists in rural areas.

After the bills are paid there's not much left - food's cheap but it ain't that cheap.

Worse, you have to buy it reasonably close to eating it, so you can't budget that far in advance or get credit - unlike utilities.

You also need a kitchen and to pay to power a fridge and an oven if you plan to save money with home-made meals.

Food is a source of joy and comfort that everyone snatches at when they're feeling down - and everyone wants a takeaway to lift the spirits if not the bank balance.

Eating out/ready meals are an important tool for psychological survival that counteracts the misery of being poor.

@XingMing

To survive on benefits or a low wage you need to be able to budget and many people can’t do this.

That is surely a failure on the part of the teachers instructing students in maths. I was a citizenship teacher in the days schools had them, and while we used holidays and houses as budgeting exercises for teaching purposes ( more enthralling than feeding the family each week) we explained everything mathematically and in health terms. It was a shrivelled approximation of the lost Home Economics O level. I think that should be brought back, at O level standard, and taught to every single student in year 9.

Teachers cannot cure society’s problems.

Agree with lots of posters.
I think a major reason is the cost of living is not in line with wages.
Back in the day, and I'm not saying this was ideal, a MAN (women's wages weren't considered) had to take home a weekly wage which was at least the same or more than the monthly mortgage. So if your mortgage was £250 per month the man of the house (awful term) was earning £1000 per month after tax. This was a far more sensible and sustainable way.
Of course women should be able to get mortgages etc this just emphasises the point. Likewise those who rented more often than not rented from the local authority and had much more srability. Rents were proportionately cheaper and affordable.
Cooking is another issue but I doubt schools will change this. Absolutely nobody gets brownie points for ensuring pupils leave school being able to cook or do any other practical skill.
The ONLY thing that matters are Stats results and core GCSE results. Parents are also to blame here. Banging on about how good X school is. They are not talking about how rounded an education pupils get. Teachers pay is directly linked to these key results.
Children and therefore adults benefit hugely from practical subjects such as cooking, woodwork, art, gardening etc etc. I have seen the behaviour of very unruly, 'difficult' , almost out of control children, dramatically change when they sit down and sew or do other crafts or cook. Unfortunately this isn't enough for the powers that be.

I think all primary school meals should be free and I just hope that their are enough wage earners left to pay for this. Someone mentioned a family of four going to the cinema as an example of leisure, I am on a good wage but we go very rarely due to the cost. That sort of thing is really not a need in life.

I was taught to cook in the seventies at school. Plan a three course meal etc as someone else mentioned. My mother couldn’t cook at all so it was a life saver for me. It gave me the basis of knowledge to feed myself and my family for life.
Cooking just isn’t taught any longer. Kids need to learn how to budget, how to fix things, how to change a fuse and read a meter. They need to learn about household management and cooking. It’s so important.

@alexdgr8

for many struggling families everything is a hurdle. living way out, on a sink estate, long walk to infrequent bus, maybe 2 buses needed to get to supermarket/ town centre. then schlepping back with heavy bulky shopping, and local buses often stop early. plus the cost of bus fares. and having to drag young children along. things other people take for granted they don't have.

There are supermarkets that do grocery deliveries for 1.50 .

W*e can't raise benefits just because people don't know how to cook rice. If they really wanted to learn, they would google it on their phone.
*
Yes because everyone who is in food poverty also has a smart phone and the internet...

@Enoughnowstop

I don’t think benefits are too low, lots claim far more in benefits than they would in a NMW job. Plus if there are children they would get child benefit which would cover the cost of feeding a child

What qualifies you to say that benefits aren’t too low? When did you last rely on benefits for an extended period of time?

Yes, benefits add up, but if you were in a minimum wage job, you would get benefits on top.

Child benefit for a second child is £10 a week. It might feed a child but children need more than that: clothing, warmth, travel costs for appointments (dr, dentist), toys and other entertainment, internet access for homework (or home learning if that kicks in again). That’s a lot more than £10 a week.

Clearly you don't even know the rate of child benefit for a second child. And no-one on benefits is just getting child benefit, there will be the £260 odd of Uc child element or child tax credits too. People on means tested benefits can claim back travel costs for hospital appointments and I imagine most children's GP's are fairly local. So not sure where you are getting £10 a week to cover everything from ?? Ridiculous.

I line in a reasonably affluent area. When the food bank was set up here there was outrage and disbelief that anyone could possibly need it.

Now it’s running 3 days a week, there’s a community larder and a community fridge too, and the need just keeps on going.

Some of the starker cases - benefits rules now mean any change in circumstances can see your benefits stopped or paused until the change is ratified. So up to six weeks with zero income. Parents turning up to food bank not having eaten for ten days in order to give their children everything.

Families living in B and B and Premier Inn - with just access to a kettle and moved miles from any support network with no transport. So having to buy food which doesn’t need heating or refrigerating. Fine (just about) in term time when the kids get a hot meal at lunchtime but come the holidays it’s 3 cold meals a day or blow the lot on a take way of some kind or rotisserie chicken. Which then means not enough for the rest of the week. And the Breakfast part of B and B is just a jam sandwich or similar not the cooked breakfast which might be envisaged. And no microwave or hot plate allowed in room or you’ll be evicted but considered to have made yourself voluntarily homeless.

A weekly benefit payment moving from Tuesday to Thursday. And when every penny of that is already budgeted, there being no extra for food on Wednesday. And so you borrow from a “mate” who then charges interest so the next week you have nothing left on Tuesday or Wednesday. And so you borrow again until your “mate” sells your debt on and the collecter takes it out of your body. At which point you need a drink. Which then takes up 1/7th of your payment, because you live in a place which is too big, so the bedroom tax means you don’t get full housing benefit, but the housing association won’t let you move to a smaller property because you’re in arrears.

Because your child attends a really rubbish school. And is having 11 kinds of shit beaten out of her on a daily basis unless she pays off the bullies. So she takes your last tenner. Which means you can’t buy tea that night.

Because the washing machine breaks down, and you can’t afford a new one, and you can’t put the heating on either. So either you don’t wash your clothes, or if you do them by hand they take a week to dry, and either way they stink. So then your kid gets bullied again, and school start talking about the social. So you go to the launderette, but that’s £15 for a big wash and dry, and that was your food budget for the next two days.

Being poor is really really expensive.

And now you’ve got to have reliable internet and you can’t just go to the library for it, and if you’re working then maybe you used to be able to get hot drinks at work, and some places still had subsidised canteens, and perhaps if you work in a care home you can book a meal at cost and just about get by. Or maybe you work in a place which serves food and you get to take some of the leftovers home.

But then your place of work closes, or you have to leave because you can’t sort the childcare, and you fall from just about managing to living below the breadline.

As it happens, I can live fairly frugally. My income needs to fall substantially more than the 20-30% people are experiencing at the moment before I struggle. But that’s because I was helped to buy my house 20 years ago and I have a tiny mortgage left on it now. If I were renting it would be 3x as much. It’s because I have a reliable vehicle and so I can drive to an Aldi or a Lidl and I can cut my £120 food bill to £40 - it’s a bit boring, I would indeed lose a bit of weight, but it would be just about healthy enough. Done it before and didn’t enjoy it. It’s because this place is well insulated so we can turn the heating down without freezing. And I have a giant freezer and can shop from the yellow stickers and rarely pay full price for any meat I buy.

But all of that is because I come from a place of plenty. My shoes wear out I can open my cupboard and find another pair. Not new, but waterproof. My clothes wear out I can dig out stuff from the back of the wardrobe. Stop my money for a week and I can live out of my larder and my back garden.

But not everyone has that cushion.

I think the Levels seem to have got out of control, I don't remember this when I was young, I don't remember food banks.

I think it's because the cost of living has risen substantially and benefits have been cut hugely. It is due to austerity measures.

A lot of it is brought on from parents who pit themselves first. My parents spent as little as possible on us kids when we were little
The ate huge portions while we were served what was left. They both smoked and drank, went out to the pub every weekend, even though they didn't have much money. We often went to school hungry as they'd both be in bed with hangovers when we left for schooI and there'd be nothing to eat. I doubt things have changed that much.

I'm not saying we need to raise benefits because people don't know how to cook rice ffs

She's an example of why some people are living in food poverty. An extreme example sure, but still an example.

You don't have to be stupid to be poor. But if you're not that bright, if you don't have or can't acquire any life skills, escaping poverty in any sense is pretty much impossible.

I know people in their 40s who have never cooked an actual meal. They live on ready meals, pot noodles, pasta and sauce. Cooking is too difficult, beyond them. Some of that group, and others too, don't understand interest, or choose not to. End up paying huge rates of repayment because they don't understand what they're paying or how it adds up. One couple I know ended up owing over 5x their annual salary after taking out a loan for semi valid reasons, getting behind on payments, taking a further loan, ditto, then a massive consolidation loan which paid off the other loans with 5k spare. Which they put into an ISA because they thought it was important to have savings. Neither of them grasped they were paying extortionate interest, and making 1% back if that. That kind of basic stuff needs to be taught in schools. It's as important as simple cooking skills.

Teach cooking skills and financial literacy (particularly for girls) and have a robust system in place so dead beat dads have to support their children

@Supersimkin2

After the bills are paid there's not much left - food's cheap but it ain't that cheap.

Worse, you have to buy it reasonably close to eating it, so you can't budget that far in advance or get credit - unlike utilities.

You also need a kitchen and to pay to power a fridge and an oven if you plan to save money with home-made meals.

Food is a source of joy and comfort that everyone snatches at when they're feeling down - and everyone wants a takeaway to lift the spirits if not the bank balance.

Eating out/ready meals are an important tool for psychological survival that counteracts the misery of being poor.

"Eating out/ready meals are an important tool for psychological survival that counteracts the misery of being poor"

@Doughnutlady

I think all primary school meals should be free and I just hope that their are enough wage earners left to pay for this. Someone mentioned a family of four going to the cinema as an example of leisure, I am on a good wage but we go very rarely due to the cost. That sort of thing is really not a need in life.

Why should others pay for free school meals? Responsibility for children should lie solely with their parents.