CHILD POVERTY ACTION GROUP

Child poverty eats away at the core of our society. CPAG is fighting to end child poverty in the UK and it is their research which was the starting point for Magic Breakfast.

Their brilliant website: www.cpag.org.uk has a wealth of information on the issues affecting child poverty, including issues around food and nutrition.

Here are some key points from their work on school food:

• School meals play a fundamental role in promoting healthy eating and in tackling some of the issues relating to poverty.
• In 1979 1.4 million UK children lived in poverty. Today that figure has swollen to 3.8 million. 
• Only one in five school children are currently eligible to receive a free school meal.
• Over a million children living in poverty in the UK are currently missing out on free school meals – either because they are not entitled or because they do not take up their right (often due to fears of being stigmatised, for example, in some schools the children who have free school meals still have to sit apart from their peers).
• Ten per cent of children are deterred from taking school meals by cost.
• School meals are the only hot meal received by one in four children.
• Many mothers will go without food so that their children can eat.
• Poverty is not the only reason that children are not properly fed, it can also be through ignorance, apathy or lack of parental care. A survey by the Doctor –Partner Partnership (May 01) showed that one quarter of UK children eat sweets and crisps for breakfast.