Millions forced to skip meals as UK cost of living crisis deepens
Millions of people were forced to skip meals or go a whole day without eating in recent months, new data shows.
As the UK’s cost of living crisis deepened, nearly one in five low-income families experienced food insecurity in September, meaning more people went hungry than during the chaotic first weeks of the Covid lockdown, the Food Foundation charity said.
Hunger levels have more than doubled since January, according to the foundation’s latest tracker, with nearly 10 million adults and 4 million children unable to eat regular meals last month, prompting calls for stronger measures to protect vulnerable households.
These included demands for free school meals to be made available to an extra 800,000 children, amid reports of hungry school kids stealing food from classmates, skipping lunch because they could not afford school meals, or bringing in packed lunches containing just a single slice of bread.
Campaigners also condemned the government’s refusal to rule out real-terms cuts to benefits, which it is estimated would leave already struggling families hundreds of pounds a year worse off. More than half of universal credit claimants were struggling to get the food they needed, the foundation’s tracker found.
The leading public health expert Sir Michael Marmot called the rise in hunger “alarming”, and told the Guardian it would have damaging health consequences for society’s worst off, including increased occurrences of stress, mental illness, obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
A separate survey of primary schools by Chefs in Schools found half were providing a free meal for children in poverty who were ineligible for free school meals, over two thirds were referring parents to food banks, and just under 50% were offering
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