SUMMARY OF UNICEF REPORT ON CHILD WELL-BEING 2007
In 2007 UNICEF issued a report on child well-being across 21 industrial countries (read the full report HERE).
The authors used the most up-to-date information to assess "whether children feel loved, cherished, special and supported, within the family and community, and whether the family and community are being supported in this task by public policy and resources". The categories measured were:
1. Material well-being.
2. Family and peer relationships.
3. Health and safety.
4. Behaviour and risks.
5. Educational well-being
6. Children’s subjective sense of well-being.
The UK came bottom of the league of 21 countries studied. This means that the UK's children are contending with greater relative poverty and deprivation, worse relationships with their parents and peers, and increased vulnerability to risks such as alcohol and drugs abuse and teenage pregnancy.
The Children's Commissioner for England, Al Aynsley Green said: “I hope this report will prompt us all to look beyond the statistics and to the underlying causes of our failure to nurture happy and healthy children in the UK. These children represent the future of our country and from the findings of this report they are in poor health, unable to maintain loving and successful relationships, feel unsafe and insecure, have low aspirations and put themselves at risk.”
The key points that relate to Magic Breakfast’s work are:
- UK child poverty has doubled since 1979.
- 16% of children live in homes earning less than half national average wage.
- 31% of children admit being drunk on two or more occasions.
- The overall OECD league table of young people's risk behaviours sees the UK at the foot of the rankings by "a considerable distance". (Risk behaviours considered in the study include smoking, being drunk, using cannabis, fighting and bullying, and sexual behaviour.)
- Only about a third of young people eat fruit daily.
- Only about a third of young people exercise for an hour or more on five or more days a week.
- The UK is rated in the bottom third of the table for educational well-being.
- 44% of families do not regularly eat meals together.
