Frontline professionals see hungry children on a regular basis

Frontline health and education professionals are regularly seeing children who have not had enough to eat, often on a daily basis.

A survey by the Children’s Food Trust found that 85 per cent of professionals report working with children who do not get enough food. A third said this was an everyday occurrence.

The research involved youth workers, teachers, health professionals and family intervention workers. 

Two-thirds said hunger was affecting children’s health, 77 per cent said it had an impact on their ability to concentrate and learn, while a similar number said hunger was stopping children from doing well at school.

Of the 250 respondents, 42 per cent said they had fed children in the last two years because they were worried about them, while 24 per cent had given a child money to buy food. Of the school-based respondents, half said they had spotted lower quality food in children’s lunchboxes, including cheaper junk food, less fruit and cold rice or chips.