Food Poverty in the UK: Health Problems and Potential Solutions

This essay examines the impact of food poverty on the health of individuals in the UK, highlighting issues such as unreliable income, malnutrition, and food insecurity. It discusses two major health problems arising from food poverty: the struggle of low-income individuals to afford sufficient food and the prevalence of malnutrition, particularly among children. The essay then proposes two potential solutions: the implementation of anti-poverty campaigns and the establishment of strong nutrition policies. Anti-poverty campaigns aim to provide financial assistance and address the root causes of food poverty, while nutrition policies focus on promoting healthy diets, regulating unhealthy food products, and expanding access to nutritious meals, particularly for children. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of these measures in improving the health and well-being of the UK population and fostering a more resilient society. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The Health and Social Care are the term which are related to services those are available
from the providers of social and health care in the areas of UK. This is an very basic term which
refers to private sector and healthcare provision infrastructure as a whole (Moudatsou and et.al.,
2020). The health and social care according to “The English national provider of information”
refers the term to the range of academic and vocational courses that can be chosen from
vocational and academic levels from GNVQ, A-LEVEL,S/NVQ, to degrees. It also has a
healthcare and social care information centre at Scotland NHS which is managed by the
Management Board which meets the fortnightly. In United-States and Canada, social and
healthcare are usually referred as “Human Services”. The broader understanding of the term
modern health as well as societal care & there usage are legal environment ,wider policy,
organisational environment and social both in UK and also internationally. The areas to study
public health, human services, incorporate sociology and law. With their academic sessions,
students of social and health aid need to work for their placement. These placements are given
in places such as houses of personnels, health care premises and other health equipped
establishments. The other various social care and health care course are directed to developing
more skills with the motive to increase employment in respective sector. This essay is about the
health problems faced by the people of UK because of food poverty and the essay will also
provide the solutions towards the problems. Individuals suffering from poverty who are not
capable of purchasing healthy food full of nutrients for them which is sufficient to satisfy there
hunger, they also struggles to get the food because its not easy to access in the community or
both. To resolve these health problem many Anti-poverty campaign measure are launched by the
government which will be discussed further.

MAIN BODY
Discussing the two health problems which is caused by food poverty in UK, and suggest two
potential solutions.
The rate of poverty in United Kingdom is the worst in the whole Europe. And because of
the pandemic its been much harder on people to afford to eat, UK comes on the 6th number being
the richest in the world but despite of this the country is struggling for food access (Cook and et.
al., 2018). The UK rates highest in Europe if it comes to poverty.
Problem 1- Many people falls in the category of food poverty in struggle as their income is very
unreliable and very low. This is caused by a patchy social security system, low wages and
beneficial sanctions, that makes this more difficult to have money for fuel, cover rent and for that
matter food costs too (Galliand et. al.. 2019). This results in living costs which are rising day by
day and quicker than the average income do, that is the reason the living Wage Foundation more
likely encourage the voluntarily committed to pay the wage that is calculated by the real cost of
living i.e. Real Living Wage . A shopping cart should have primary consumer goods costs that is
more than the average of six percent as compared to last year, as stated by the figures from
Office of National Statistics (ONS). As there incomes are very low people living within the food
poverty do not have money that is enough to purchase sufficient food to as they do not have
access to these basic facilities in their community. Food insecurity has left many persons reliant
on parcels on basis of emergency from food banks.
Problem 2- Malnutrition occurs in the body when there is not enough right nutrients to function
the body properly (Fore and et. al., 2020). This can be presented under-nutrition like stunting,
wasting and also overweight, diet-related NCDs and obesity such as stroke and cardiovascular
disease, diabetes and some of the cancers. These unhealthy diets occurs when drinks and foods
with level of high energy (calories), fats,sugar, salt and notably industrial trans fats are also
known as trans-fatty, iTFA. The major effect of Malnutrition is on young generation that is
children. There is a Rise in Malnutrition of Children. This impacts on the likelihood of poor
health later in life and disease mainly impacts in early life nutrition. But biggest challenges is
the childhood malnutrition in public health in recent times. In 2020, an estimated 7% and 22% of
children under five are affected by wasting and stunting and 7% are overweight. Most of the
children live in middle and lower-income countries. Breastfeeding is effective that ensures the

developing in health immune system in children, that protects them against the poor health and
malnutrition through out their life course. But aggressive marketing of feature and compromising
breastfeeding, baby foods seeds doubt in mothers and some other feeding healthy practices in the
beginning childhood. Policies that promote and protect breastfeeding, that includes the regulation
of breast milk industry which provides substitute that are critical public health interventions.
Solution 1- There are many programmes and campaigns announces to resolving and getting
solution on food poverty in UK (Zamri and et.al., 2020). Anti-poverty campaigners, opposition
politicians and trade unions has called upon the temporary universal upliftment in credit that is
brought as measures to be taken in case of emergency in starting of the period of lockdown, it
was converted to permanent and assistance from this legacy were also extended. The
government has also removed the funding in the month of October in year of 2021 as well as any
increments in respective scheme and campaign were dismissed. With the increasing cost of
living, there is loss of almost £1,040 within a year is forced some suitors to choice between food
or heating. Eight Million families are been struggling from the low incomes crisis that will be
given a one off “cost of living pensioners” , with the help of which they will be gaining the
payments for Winter Fuel and many of them are disproportionately has impacted the rise in
prices of energy that has received a cost of living cast boosted of 300 Euro. The experts of
welfare and council have also called for suspension of public funding policy that have no course
repeatedly in order to decrease and make less migrators that country do not be pushed towards
poverty and experts have also pointed to the local authority budgets to dispatch and a
unsatisfactoriness in the social welfare defence net as major driver of food bank they are working
on the feed two-child limit scheme and also benefits cap among policies which are trapping
people in poverty.
Solution 2- Implementing strong polices for nutrition which will not be accelerate in progress
for the global NCD targets but this is also essential to build healthy and more and more resilient
populations which are prepared better to deal with the future health emergencies like COVID-19
(Probst and et.al., 2020).There has been taken some specific measured too like Reformulation of
drinks and food products, so that trans-fats can be eliminated. Front-of-pack nutrition labels
system this has been implemented in more than 30 countries where government has supported
development. Government has also limited the advertisement of unhealthy drinking products and
food items including online promotions too (Power and et.al., 2020). There government has also

expanded the free meals for school under a scheme and ensures a full hot meal to every children
every day. Henry Dimbleby the adviser leader on the day of national food recommended strategy
on the government to extent the school meals to all the children in under the 16 living in
households earns less than 20,000 Euro. The governmental bodies has also promoted awareness
of nutrition which is better through media campaigns in number of ways. There is also nutrition
counselling and education for schools, preschools, health centres and workplaces. To reduce
consumption of sugar government has also put restriction through Taxes on beverages made
from sugar-sweetened and also increased incentives for retailers and producers to grow, sell and
use fresh vegetables and fruits. Many nutrition measures are also been considered like cost-
effective by WHO and which includes their “Best Buys” which are recommended interventions
to reduce the burden of NCDs across the globe.
CONCLUSION
This essay can be concluded as The social and Health Care these terms can be defined as
they are related to services which are available from providers of health and social care in the
UK. This essay have the health problems face by individuals in UK. Major population of UK is
living in food poverty and in this essay have also discussed the solutions to these problems face
by people of UK. The governmental bodies have launched many scheme and campaigns to
overcome these problems like Anti-poverty campaigns, iTFA etc. These schemes aims is to
provide sufficient food to the people of the country and meals to children within the school
premises so that they can have one time hot and full meal every day. This supports the young
generation to overcome the poverty and contribute in economy of the country. The example of
these schemes can be Front-of-pack schemes, Reformation of food products food items and
measure steps are taken to avoid trans-fats foods and restrict sugar-sweetened items beverages by
increasing Taxes on those unhealthy food items and also increased the awareness and use of
fresh fruits and vegetables and incentives for the retailers.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Moudatsou, and et.al., 2020, January. The role of empathy in health and social care
professionals. In Healthcare (Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 26). MDPI.
Cook, and et.al., 2018. Child food insecurity increases risks posed by household food insecurity
to young children's health. The Journal of nutrition, 136(4), pp.1073-1076.
Galli, and et.al., 2019. Food waste reduction and food poverty alleviation: a system dynamics
conceptual model. Agriculture and Human Values, 36(2), pp.289-300.
Fore, and et.al., 2020. Child malnutrition and COVID-19: the time to act is now. The
Lancet, 396(10250), pp.517-518.
Zamri, and et.al., 2020. Delivery, impact and approach of household food waste reduction
campaigns. Journal of Cleaner Production, 246, p.118969.
Probst, and et.al., 2020. Meeting the global NCD target of at least 10% relative reduction in the
harmful use of alcohol: is the WHO European Region on track?. International Journal of
Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(10), p.3423.
Power, and et.al., 2020. How COVID-19 has exposed inequalities in the UK food system: The
case of UK food and poverty. Emerald Open Research, 2.