Daily and weekly access to nutritious food is a challenge for many individuals, households and communities across Australia. Estimates vary, but approximately five to six percent of Australians report that they sometimes and are unable to buy more – that’s over 1.5 million people.
It comes as a shock to many people, that in a rich nation where food can seem so plentiful, there are families who you wouldn’t expect to be struggling, who suffer stress and anxiety in order to put food on the table.
The picture is even worse among many low-income groups. Research has shown 40 per cent of homeless young people have severe food insecurity; it can affect up to 45 per cent of single parent families, 18.5 per cent of Aboriginal families and up to 80 per cent of newly arrived refugee communities. And it seems to be getting worse, with many welfare agencies reporting increased demand for support from the ‘working poor’.
affects people’s health and contributes to a number of chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes. Faced with hungry kids, parents may have no option but to choose filling and less healthy foods, and will often skip meals or eat less themselves. Many people report that the stress of not knowing where the next meal will come from can be even worse than feeling hungry. Not eating enough can make you irritable and lack energy and motivation.
And critically, as the program shows, if kids go to school without breakfast, it can affect their concentration and learning, leading to long-term effects on their life choices/outcomes, and contributing to an increasingly unequal society.
Is this acceptable in Australia today?
What can be done?
Australia’s Right to Food Coalition advocates that access to nutritious food be viewed as an essential human right, and that decision-makers need to prioritise action to ensure that those who most need access to healthy food, are able to get it.
Food insecurity is deeply entrenched in poverty and therefore has complex causes. Effective solutions must be multi-pronged and will take time and a coordinated approach. So how do we start this multi-pronged approach and begin to really tackle this problem?
- Firstly, we need to ensure welfare benefits and wages are at a level sufficient to purchase healthy foods and ensure an adequate standard of living.
- Subsidies for fresh and nutritious foods in rural and remote areas, where food prices are much higher, are necessary.
- We need regular monitoring of food insecurity – current data is underestimating the magnitude of this problem and its economic burden on our Government.
There are several well established programs which are effectively rescuing food that would otherwise go to waste and supporting hundreds of community based food access programs. They are providing an essential service for thousands of families however, they are not intended (nor are they able) to address the root cause of food insecurity. Instead, this response is simply putting a band aid onto the sore.
Australia is lagging behind more progressive countries on this issue. Others are seeing food insecurity as a symptom of food and social system failure and are discussing all aspects of food, food systems, food production and food access and cost of living across the whole community. We believe it’s time for Australia to step up to the mark and honour the human right to adequate food for all Australians.
Liz Millen wrote on behalf of which exists to improve the health and well-being of all Australians by working to ensure equitable access to nutritious food. They are a Coalition of organisations, practitioners, researchers and community workers.
Insight has no affiliation with this group.
