Holiday Hunger and Health

[TraceyDC]

I've been reading about the impact of Holiday Hunger across the UK and the 3 million kids that will reportedly go hungry over the summer holidays due to not receiving free school meals.

Has anyone struggled over the holidays? The government is reportedly spending money on a pilot scheme to help, but will it be enough?

Teachers report that children return to school in September malnourished. Is this true?

I don't really understand the ins and outs of what they say properly. I read somewhere that it is due to families not being able to afford food so they skip lunch but maybe instead of continuous extra funding there could be a plan in place to teach people yo eat well for less.

This is in no way a dig at anybody at all who can't afford meals and it's awful for people to be in that situation.. I myself have had weeks where I wondered what we would do but it was a bit like the Kellogg breakfast campaign where they declared families couldn't afford a box of coco pops.. that might be true but could they have instead got a 40p bag of porridge oats or a 40p loaf for toast for the week?

It worries me, and it's far more complex than making better shopping choices. Porridge requires electricity. Cooking from scratch requires the luxury of time. Visiting many shops to get the best deals also require time and the ability to transport it all. The problem isnt just those out of work. Families in work are a large part of this group. No time, no money, exhausted from thinking about how you meet your financial comittments. I don't know about you but I make bad food decisions for convenience when I exausted

I used to work in an inner city London school, in a very poor area. Many of the children had their school lunch as their only proper meal of the day. Ten years on, child poverty in the UK is getting worse. Sadly I can well imagine there will be a lot of children going hungry during the holidays. And if not quite hungry, existing on crisps and cereal. Without a radical overhaul of our social care, education and healthcare systems however, I'm not sure how this is going to change.

Your OP sounds like journalistic fishing - is it?

My two sisters work as teachers in London and Berkshire and both told me about this. And a close friend of mine volunteers at a charity who applied for funding but was unsuccessful. I admit to living in a bit of a bubble about this until it became a topic of conversation. I wonder if many others don't realise the scale of the problem...

I do think supermarkets should advertise the food bank donations when you walk in, not when you walk out so you know to pick up extras on the way round. The number of times I've left and not had the time to go back round to grab a couple of extras. As a working mum, everything is always a rush.

essential hummus I thought exactly the same.