Health Equals – Supporting Free School Meals to reduce health inequalities for children
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Health Equals and The Food Foundation
The Food Foundation is a charity with a mission to change government food policy and food business practice to ensure everyone, across the UK nations, can afford and access a healthy and sustainable diet.
We are one of a group of organisations and voices that make up Health Equals – a campaign to shine a light on how people in the UK who live in our poorest neighbourhoods are dying a decade earlier than people in the wealthiest areas. Health Equals aims to shape a society where each of us has our best chance of good health, no matter who we are or where we’re born, work or live.
How does diet affect your health and life expectancy?
Diet is one of the biggest preventable factors for ill health. Healthy food is often less affordable, available and accessible for people living in low-income communities and as a result, lower-income groups tend to have worse diet-related health. Improving diets is therefore a key factor in reducing health inequalities and improving life expectancy.
In January 2023, 21.6% of UK households with children reported that their children had directly experienced food insecurity in the past month, affecting an estimated 3.7 million children. Food Insecurity Tracker
How Free School Meals help
When children have enough nutritious food, they are ready to learn, thrive and overcome challenges. Children are in school 190 days per year which creates an important opportunity to improve a child’s access to good nutrition.
Free School Meals are a critical way of mitigating the negative impact of diet inequalities and improving children’s health. They target children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, who may not otherwise have access to a healthy diet. For many children, a Free School Meal can be the only hot nutritious meals they have all day.
Evidence shows children who eat school lunches have better overall diets, lower obesity rates and better academic performance. However, in England, the eligibility for Free School Meals is very low meaning that 800,000 children living in poverty miss out. This prevents all children from having equal access to a healthy diet or the opportunity to thrive equally.
What can you do about it?
One way you can help to tackle these inequalities in health and life expectancy is by calling on Government to make sure children in lower income families can receive a healthy, nutritious meal at school.
The Feed the Future campaign is an England-wide campaign calling on the Government to urgently extend Free School Meals to more children so that no child living in poverty misses out.
We have drafted an online letter that you can send to your MP:
