Food poverty

Food poverty means that an individual or household isn’t able to obtain healthy, nutritious food, or can’t access the food they would like to eat.

Despite increasing choice and affordability of food in the UK, many people eat what they can afford, not what they want.

This often results in people eating poor diets, which can lead to heart disease, obesity, diabetes and cancer, as well as inadequate levels of many vitamins and minerals. Obesity is now a sign of poverty in the rich countries, as hunger is in poor countries.

Food poverty and economic poverty are linked. Rent, tax and debts are fixed costs; food is the ‘flexible’ budget item, and families and individuals pay the price.

Poor children suffer from lower nutrient intake, bad dietary patterns, hunger, low fruit and vegetable consumption and problems accessing food in school holidays.

Around 4 million people in the UK are estimated to suffer from food poverty.

Priorities

• Government should explicitly identify and address the structural inequalities in household income and access to food that contribute to food poverty
• Minimum wage and benefits levels should be sufficient to ensure that all households have a living income, not merely a survival income
• Food retailers reputations should depend on them proactively seeking to ensure that that the healthiest foods are affordable and accessible to all.