Almost one in five children and young people in Western Australia are likely suffer food insecurity, an inquiry into the best ways to tackle the issue has found.
Hunger is causing severe health problems, crime and poor school attendance in an intergenerational cycle of poverty in some communities, a report tabled in state parliament on Thursday says.
The problem is likely to be much larger than the available statistics suggest, with many families and children hiding the fact they have insufficient food.
“This is not likely to change in the near future,” Robyn Clarke, chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the Commissioner for Children and Young People, said in the report.
“Some parents are themselves going hungry as they try to make impossible choices between feeding their kids and paying for other necessities.”
The committee visited six WA towns in regional and remote areas doing it tough and found the inability to focus on learning because of hunger affects students’ future income-earning capacity and continued the cycle of poverty.
“We (also) visited some schools in low socioeconomic suburbs of Hobart … teachers and principals at these schools told us how it made a difference to attendance and positively impacted concentration and behaviour,” Ms Clarke said.
“As one principal told us, it’s a ‘no-brainer’; hungry kids cannot learn effectively.”
The inquiry investigated the effectiveness of two established approaches to addressing food insecurity – food relief and food literacy programs – as well as the merits of a school lunch program.
A total of 58 findings were made, including that an estimated 17 per cent of WA’s children and youths live with food insecurity, with Indigenous and refugee children from low-income families in regional and remote areas the most likely to suffer.
The report also said WA had international agreements that oblige the state to address children’s needs for food and good nutrition.
The committee made 24 recommendations, including the introduction of a school lunch program for impoverished students and nutritional support for struggling pregnant women to help them deliver healthy birthweight babies.
It also said the WA government should fund healthy eating guidelines, known as food literacy, and education programs.
It said the Department of Health should investigate bolstering the number of frontline health workers to improve food literacy development in communities at risk of food insecurity.
The report recommended the Department of Education increase funding for the School Breakfast Program to meet demand and increase its reach.
-AAP
