Lockdown had a mixed impact on the eating habits of children and young people. While many families found that they suddenly had more time to cook and eat together as a family, the constraints of lockdown also led to more snacking.
A survey from Bite Back 2030 and Guy's and St Thomas' Charity (2020) found that 60% of young people felt that eating as a family and cooking together had had a positive impact.
Four out of ten teens said they had snacked more in lockdown, with those from less advantaged families more likely to eat junk food and take-aways and less likely to eat fruit.
The findings came as restauranteur Henry Dimbleby's (2020) government-commissioned National Food Strategy was published to address ‘the turbulence caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to prepare for the end of the EU Exit tradition period on 31 December 2020’.
The report said the virus had highlighted with ‘terrible clarity the damage being done to our health by the modern food system’ and ‘the slow motion disaster of the British diet’, which was responsible for one in seven deaths in the UK even before the pandemic, and was almost as fatal as smoking.
‘Eating well in childhood is the very foundation stone of equality of opportunity and is essential for both physical and mental growth …’
The main theme of the recommendations was to ensure that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are not left behind. ‘Eating well in childhood is the very foundation stone of equality of opportunity and is essential for both physical and mental growth’, the strategy states.
‘In the post-lockdown recession, many families will struggle to feed themselves adequately. A government that is serious about “levelling up” must ensure that all children get the nutrition they need’.
The strategy comprises seven recommendations:
- Expand eligibility for the Free School Meal scheme to include every child (up to the age of 16 years) from a household where a parent or guardian is in receipt of Universal Credit or equivalent benefits.
- Extend the Holiday Activity and Food Programme to all areas in England, so that summer holiday support is available to all children in receipt of free school meals.
- Increase the value of Healthy Start vouchers to £4.25 per week and expand the scheme to every pregnant woman and to all households with children under 4 years where a parent or guardian is in receipt of Universal Credit or equivalent benefits.
- Extend the work of the Food and Other Essential Supplies to the Vulnerable Ministerial Task Force for a further 12 months up until July 2021.
- The government should only agree to cut tariffs in new trade deals on products which meet our core standards. Verification programmes – along the lines of those currently operated by the US Department of Agriculture to enable American farmers to sell non-hormone-treated beef to the EU – should be established, so that producers wishing to sell into the UK market can, and must, prove they meet these minimum standards.
- The government should give itself a statutory duty to commission an independent report on all proposed trade agreements, assessing their impact on economic productivity; food safety and public health; the environment and climate change; society and labour; human rights; and animal welfare.
- The government should adopt a statutory duty to give Parliament the time and opportunity to properly scrutinise any new trade deal. It must allow time for relevant select committees to produce reports on any final deal, and allow a debate in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords.
‘…the virus had highlighted with “terrible clarity the damage being done to our health by the modern food system” and “the slow motion disaster of the British diet”…’
The Bite Back 2030 and Guy's and St Thomas' Charity (2020) findings revealed that many young people from poorer background took responsibility for preparing meals for key worker single parents. The survey also found that over 50% of young people said that they had drunk more water during lockdown.
Bite Back said lockdown had made young people more aware of injustices within the food system and called for less prominence of junk food advertising and redesigning high streets to be healthier.
Christina Adane, youth co-chair of Bite Back, said: ‘Being at home has opened my eyes to the magnitude of problems this country faces, especially with food.
‘I want the Prime Minister to listen to young people; see the issues we have to face like holiday hunger, inaccessibility to healthy food and lack of nutrition.
‘I don't want us to be the victims of endless fast food advertisement and celebrities endorsing stuff that everyone knows is bad for us.’
The charity said it ‘fully supports’ the National Food Strategy and its ‘focus on the health and wellbeing of future generations’ – in particular the recommendation to extend free school meal provision to include every child up to the age of 16 from a household where the parent or guardian receives Universal Credit.
In recent weeks, Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United and England football, has ramped up his campaign to end child food poverty in Britain.
After forcing a government U-turn on summer holiday school meal vouchers, he has linked up with the food industry to set up a child food poverty taskforce, with the involvement of a number of brand names including Aldi, Tesco, Deliveroo and Kellogg's.
In a letter to MPs, he said that food poverty was contributing to social unrest and described ‘watching a young boy keeping it together while his mother sobbed alongside him, feeling like he has to step up to protect his family and alleviate some of that worry. He was 9 years old.’
‘I know that feeling,’ Rashford wrote. ‘I remember the sound of my mum crying herself to sleep to this day, having worked a 14-hour shift, unsure how she was going to make ends meet. That was my reality.’
He called on the government to action three of the recommendations of the National Food Strategy – the expansion of free school meals to every child whose family is on universal credit, an expansion of holiday provision to all children on free school meals, and a significant boost to the value of Healthy Start vouchers for families with young children – something that ministers have not yet committed to do.