Key stage 3
Hunger in the UK
Updated Jun 2016
Lessons for Life: Hunger in the UK
Links to subjects: Citizenship, PSHE, PSD, English
Keywords:
Learning objective: To be able to understand the problems of, reasons for and
experience of hunger in the UK. To be able to define what it is and discuss the
experience of hunger through quotations and stories.
Hunger
Poverty
Food security
Starters:
What is hunger?
As a group, ask the students to discuss and write down what they think hunger is, is it just food or
can we be hungry for anything else?
Read them this extract from Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya
“Hunger is a curious thing: At first it is with you all the time, walking and sleeping and in your
dreams, and your belly cries out incessantly, and there is a gnawing and a pain as if your vitals were
being devoured, and you must stop it at any cost…then the pain is no longer sharp but dull, and this
too is with you always, so that you think of food many times a day and each time a terrible sickness
assails you…then that too is gone, all pain, all desire, only a great emptiness is left, like the sky, like a
well in drought.”
Ask the students for their reaction to that description? How did it make them feel? Are they
surprised by the descriptions of hunger that they heard?
Refer to the definition of hunger below. Compare this definition with those of the group. Discuss the
definitions, how do they differ?
Hunger is the inability to acquire or consume
an adequate quality or sufficient quantity of
food in socially acceptable ways, or the
uncertainty of being able to do so.
Introduce the idea of food security and ask the students how it is connected to the definition of
hunger
“Food security is access by all people at all
times to enough food for an active healthy
life. At a minimum, this includes the ready
availability of nutritionally adequate and safe
foods and the assured ability to acquire
personally acceptable foods in a socially
acceptable way”
Introduce the idea of hunger in the UK by discussing a couple of myths:

Some people assume that others are hungry because they are too lazy to work
Many people are hungry even though they work. Over half of the children in poverty
in the UK have parents with jobs. (Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2011.
Aldridge, Parekh, Macinnes and Kenway.) Only 16 per cent of working-age
households have no working adult. Nov 2015 JRF: https://www.jrf.org.uk/mpse2015/commentary
Many people believe that the hungry people who ask for help from food programmes are
homeless.
1.25 million people, including over 300,000 children, were destitute over the course of
2015. Joseph Rowntree Foundation https://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/over-1-million-peoplecant-afford

UK Hunger facts:
This can be shared with the students as a true or false exercise with a few made up facts added as
false facts.
A recent JRF study found that there is no one cause of destitution. Most people had been
living in poverty for a considerable period of time before tipping into destitution. This long
term poverty reduced their ability to meet day to day living costs or withstand financial
shocks. They were then tipped into destitution through:




the extra costs of ill health and disability;
high costs of housing and other essential bills;
unemployment;
a financial shock like a benefit sanction or delay, as well as low levels of benefits for
some groups;
debt repayments particularly from social fund loans and benefit overpayments owed
to DWP, council tax arrears owed to local councils, rent arrears, and debts to utility
companies.

https://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/over-1-million-people-cant-afford







In the UK 30 – 40 % of food is never eaten 1
13 million people live below the poverty line in the UK; 3.9 million of those are
children.
One third of British children are forced to go without one of the things they
need such as three meals a day or adequate clothing. 2
The gap between rich and poor has reached its highest level in 30 years.4
More than 3 million people in the UK are at risk of malnutrition with the vast
majority, about 93%, living in the community setting, 5% in residential care
and 2% in hospital.
One million older people in the United Kingdom living in their own homes are
suffering from malnutrition.
Poverty shortens lives. A boy in Manchester can expect to live 7 years less
than a boy in Barnet. (End Child Poverty)
Activities (individual):


Write a short description of what you think it must feel like to be hungry. What would you
most crave? How would you feel about others who have food?
Write a letter to your local paper, or your MP or councillor telling them what you think
about people being hungry in your local area. Suggest some actions for them to take.
Activities (group):

How does hunger affect us? (30 mins)The activity teaches students about different foods and
the vitamins they supply. A drawing helps identify how the body uses the basic vitamins and
minerals. The group compares well-fed children to hungry children and discusses the physical
effects of hunger.
Ask for four volunteers. Roll out paper/ scrap paper and ask the volunteers to lie down on the
paper. Get a partner to outline their bodies with a marker. Hand out the Nutritional Know-how
sheets. Ask students about the different nutrients and why they are important. For example,
"Where does vitamin A come from? What part of your body does it help?"
Ask the students what foods they ate for breakfast. Use the traced body outlines to have the
students draw the foods they ate on the part of the body that benefits from the vitamins in that
food. For example, if they name carrots, have them draw carrots on the eyes of the body
outline. Items from their breakfasts will be placed on the first outlined body.
Repeat the activity on the second and third body outlines. The second body outline represents
what the students had for lunch and the third represents what they had for dinner. Leave the
fourth body outline empty.
Ask the children how they feel when they are hungry and how this fourth "child" might feel.

Organise a food drive in your class or school. Resources can be found on the
www.onecantrust.org.uk website.

Have a muftiday with a difference. Ask the students to bring a can of food instead of a donation
of money. Collect all the cans in a central place and ask the students to reflect on how many
people they will be able to help.

One Can Make a Difference. This activity allows students to reflect on what they learned about
hunger.(20 – 30 mins) Preparation: Photocopy of a picture of a can
Give each student a paper can. Tell students to write on the can something they learned
about hunger. Tell them to decorate the can then ask them to share what they wrote. After
sharing, have each student tape their can on the wall. As a class look at the pile of cans and
see that One Can from everyone has made a big pile of cans that can make a big difference.