16 July 2025
'Food insecurity isn't about poor choices - it's about a lack of choices'
Citizens working with The Food Foundation have given powerful contributions to a new report highlighting the consequences of living in areas with higher levels of poverty.
Hungry for Change: Tackling Obesity and Food Insecurity in the North of England, was launched by the Child of the North All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) in Parliament.
Among its key findings are that families living in areas of higher poverty are less likely to have access to healthy, affordable food with negative consequences for their children.
As experts by experience of food insecurity and campaigners for a better food future, Evette Callendar, Keira Forrester and Penny Walters all contributed to the report, which found food insecurity is rising more in the north of England than the south, child obesity rates are higher, and fast-food outlets take up more of northern communities’ high streets.
Evette shared her experience of pregnancy and gestational diabetes, while experiencing food insecurity, and the barriers she faced when trying to afford and access a healthy diet and Penny, as a bulwark of her community, wrote the foreword where she spoke of the power of local initiatives to tackle food insecurity, and reflected on her own struggles.
Meanwhile, Keira shared her insights as a young person who has grown up on Free School Meals, and the challenges of fulfilling your potential while facing hunger.
Read some of their contributions below
Penny, Newcastle
"Food insecurity has been a persistent reality for my family, shaped largely by inadequate welfare policies and the rising cost of living. Over the years, the support we’ve received simply hasn’t kept pace with inflation. Benefits have been cut or frozen, while food prices, rent, fuel, and basic household items have continued to rise sharply. As a result, accessing healthy and nutritious food has become increasingly difficult. Cooking from scratch is often presented as a solution, but it requires more than ingredients - it requires fuel, appropriate kitchen equipment, and knowledge.
"When even one of those elements is missing, families are left without real options. Schemes such as Healthy Start are well-intentioned but insufficient. A £4.25 weekly allowance for pregnant women does not begin to cover the cost of essential items such as infant formula, which can cost up to £10 per container. This leaves little or nothing for fruit, vegetables, or other vital foods. To address food poverty in a meaningful way, we must increase household income and lower the cost of healthy food. It is unacceptable that large food corporations continue to post record profits while farmers are underpaid and families are priced out of a balanced diet.
"We need stronger political representation that truly reflects our lived experience. Auto-enrolment for schemes such as free school meals and Healthy Start should be standard. The two-child benefit cap must be lifted. And we need more well-funded community hubs where people can seek advice and support without stigma. Food insecurity is not about poor choices - it is about a lack of choices. It is about affordability, access, and dignity. We, the people living it, are the experts. It’s time for our voices to shape the solutions."
Keira, north of England
"So when we first moved into our flat, we had literally nothing. We had like a kettle and a spoon or something and the clothes we literally had on us, we didn’t have anything else. You don’t know when the next meal’s going to come. Your body is then saving the little bits of food they are getting that then makes you put on weight in the long run.
"It had quite a negative impact because we were always stressing about what we were going to do with the next bit of money we had coming in, whether we were going to buy food or whether we were going to have a nice warm house all month. Although something seems basic, such as food and warmth, some people don’t have full access to those."
Evette, Newcastle
"I suffered from food insecurity with both of my pregnancies especially because I had gestational diabetes in both of them. Having gestational diabetes required me to eat a healthy but specialist diet, low in sugar and salt, with plenty of fruit and veg such as; berries, apples, pears and citrus fruits. Foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, Greek yogurt, nuts and seeds. I needed to eat these particular types of food as they were recommended for me by my GP and hospital consultants in order for me to maintain a healthy pregnancy.
"However, sometimes this wasn’t always practical, because often I didn’t have the money to even travel to these shops to buy these types of food, or at other times, due to the nature of my pregnancies, I was just too tired to do so, and sometimes I would even go without the food altogether, or resort to eating cheap, readily available food that I could buy in many of my local shops which were within walking distance from my house. One of the major factors of this has been the area that I live in because there are no fresh fruit and veg shops there, and to buy anything considered healthy I would need to travel over a mile away by either bus or taxi (as I don’t drive) in order to get to the shops that sold the more healthier foods that I needed."
Food Poverty Campaigner wanting everybody to have access to healthy food.
I became a Young Food Ambassador because I want to be part of a team who helps families and young people have the right to food.
Being a single mother of 2 on benefits, I've always been ardent about joining any cause to do with providing healthy affordable food for all, and where possible eradicating food poverty for good because I have seen so much of it in my lifetime, and especially during this current cost of living crisis.
So much so, that I worked as a volunteer with for a homeless charity called Changing Lives (formerly known as The Cyrenians) helping to make up food packages in their warehouse to distribute to other projects or causes of a similar nature.
I am also in the process of setting up a charity in the area where I live, which will seek to address some of the underlying causes of food poverty and insecurity by having a food pantry on site, which will provide the local community with fresh, sustainable, healthy, affordable food.
