The pandemic has led to a rise in food insecurity across the UK, and the problem has hit households with children harder than the general population.
A 2020 survey found that 14 per cent of adults living with children experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in the first six months of the pandemic � up from 11.5 per cent. Even with the easing of restrictions in the summer of 2020, by January 2021, 2.3 million children were living in households that had experienced food insecurity in the previous six months.
The 2021 Child of the North report by the N8 Research Partnership defined food insecurity as ‘the lack of financial resources required to ensure reliable access to food to meet dietary, nutritional, and social needs’. But research by the Food Foundation found there were additional drivers of food insecurity beyond lack of income. People who were self-isolating were more likely to have gone without food because they could not go out to get it, while a lack of food in shops also drove levels up.
‘Food insecurity exists when somebody cannot afford or access the food they need to sustain themselves and their family,’ explains Andrew Forsey, national director of Feeding Britain, an anti-hunger charity.
YOUNG CHILDREN
Thomas Abrams, project lead on the Early Years Chef Academy, run by the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), which trains chefs at LEYF and other nurseries to identify and respond to food insecurity, says evidence of the issue in early years settings since the pandemic has been overwhelming.
‘Our nurseries see children who are clearly hungry when they arrive. In some cases, food that is put out in the �home corner� has been eaten by hungry children.
‘We also observe symptoms of food insecurity with parents. Some tell us directly they are struggling to put food on the table, sometimes skipping meals themselves to be able to feed their children; others make it clear by making good use of our foodbanks and emphasising how grateful they are for the support. We are alarmingly seeing this not just among the poorest families, but also among those who are working full time.’
However, there is a lack of research on exactly when children face the worst of rising food insecurity.
Forsey says, ‘While the data has shown consistently that families with children face a higher risk of hunger and food insecurity than other households, a lot more work is required to break down these data between pre-school and school-aged children. That said, children tend to be most likely to be poor when they, or their siblings, are babies or very young.’
THE RISKS
Children experiencing food insecurity are more likely to display signs of stress, fatigue and anxiety. Even short spells of food insecurity have been found to decrease learning outcomes, short-term memory and self-regulation skills, sometimes continuing to impact them years later.
‘Food poverty impacts social and emotional wellbeing, early learning and health,’ says subject lead for Childhood, Youth and Families at the University of Northampton, Eunice Lumsden. ‘The consequences may impact them across their life course.’
Other issues, such as childhood obesity, are more likely to affect children who suffer food insecurity at home.
‘The increasing cost of living pushes families towards lower-cost and often less-nutritious foods, which have knock-on effects on health, further exacerbating health inequalities, as well as developmental and educational outcomes,’ adds Abrams.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Healthy Start and, in Scotland, Best Start schemes provide help for pregnant women and families with young children who are on benefits to access healthy food and milk.
The schemes, alongside free school meal vouchers and furlough, have been widely credited with warding off what could have been an even worse situation during the pandemic. This has in turn led to calls for the expansion of free school meals eligibility, the extension of the holiday food programme across England, and an increase in the value of Healthy Start vouchers.
But the Child of the North report pointed out that more than 250,000 children under five who are food insecure are still ineligible for the vouchers, which do not always keep up with inflation anyway, and it raises concerns that the digitalisation of the scheme risks excluding even more families.
Forsey warns, ‘The Healthy Start and Best Start schemes are vital for families on low incomes with babies and young children. However, the schemes have often been beset by low levels of awareness and take-up among families who are eligible. Moreover, the switch from vouchers to prepaid cards has caused difficulties for some families.’
Feeding Britain has also proposed that the basis of registering for Healthy Start and Best Start should be automated, switching from ‘opt in’ to ‘opt out’.
Abrams advocates implementing mandatory food standards in nurseries because the National Food Strategy does not reference early years.
‘Many families rely heavily on food served in nurseries, and for some families it’s the only food children have all day,’ he says. ‘However, without mandatory standards, these meals are oftentimes not as healthy as they ought to be. We need Government action to ensure meals in nurseries are as healthy as possible.’
IN PRACTICE
As food insecurity looks set to persist, with food and energy prices rising, several settings, including LEYF nurseries and Rosebuds Pre-School (see Case study) are supporting their families by making food parcels, creating food banks or leaving leftover milk, fruit and vegetables for families to collect anonymously.
However, Dr Lumsden says there is still more that settings can do to help. ‘Staff training around the issues faced by families is essential, and understanding why and what we can do to enable families is key. We need to ensure we provide non-stigmatising environments where families do not feel judged. This involves looking at our own values and how we view others.’
She adds it may be worth staff looking closer to home, too. ‘Given that the pay is low, food poverty is not necessarily something out there happening to others. It is not just in our communities but in our workplaces as well.’
CASE STUDY: Rosebuds Pre-School in south London
‘Our children are not starving, but they’re often not eating balanced meals throughout the day,’ explains director Candice James. ‘Our area is a food desert, without many good-quality food outlets, so families have to go further to find what they need. Most of our families have at least five children, so getting out is challenging.’
During the first lockdown over Easter 2020, families who usually received meals at the setting during the holidays were unable to access their food. Staff arranged to deliver it in person, ensuring children continued to receive nutritious lunches while also keeping in touch with the most vulnerable families.
In the first five weeks of lockdown alone, staff distributed 1,422 lunches to 127 children by bicycle.
‘When we were talking to our families, they were fearful,’ says James. ‘Their normal routine was out of sync and it drove them to panic, so providing healthy, nutritious meals slipped down their agenda.’
As living costs rise, the pre-school, which is based in a community centre, has now adapted its space to become a distribution hub for a regular supply of fresh, healthy food surplus, while staff run cooking and growing activities.
‘During the pandemic, panic wasn’t so much about cost as availability,’ says James. ‘Now, the focus is on the cost of living. Our families are not only suffering from food poverty but fuel poverty, so anxiety levels are raised again. They have bigger things to worry about than nutrition.’
FURTHER INFORMATION
- Child of the North report: https://bit.ly/3xlUoYr
- Food security report: https://bit.ly/3KfaZAs
- Healthy Start: www.gov.uk/healthy-start
- www.nationalfoodstrategy.org
