Aussie school children left hungry: report

16 Oct 2012, 6:46 pm   -   Source: AAP
A report shows 45,000 Australian households don't have enough money to adequately feed their family. (AAP)

A report shows 45,000 Australian households don't have enough money to adequately feed their family. (AAP)

The education of thousands of Australian school children is suffering because their parents cannot afford to feed their family properly.

Thousands of Australian children are suffering at school because their parents can't afford to properly feed them, health and social experts warn.

A report released by Anglicare Australia on Tuesday estimates around 45,000 households accessing its emergency relief services don't have enough money to adequately feed their families.

Of this group, 22,000 go without food for a whole day, at least once a week.

Almost one in ten are children.

"It's really quite unforgivable," Anglicare's executive director Kasy Chambers told AAP.

"We think being hungry is pretty horrible, but it means that people aren't going to school or they're going to school hungry.

"We know, every educationalist knows, that children can't concentrate when they're hungry."

Ms Chambers said some parents were keeping their children home from school on days they couldn't afford to put food in their lunchbox, and often missed meals themselves to ensure their family was fed.

"One dad told us that every second he's awake he's worrying about what to give the kids to eat," she said.

"It just seems unthinkable in 2012 in Australia.

"That's happening to them weekly and it's effecting their education - and we know that education is one of the sure-fire ways out of poverty."

Nutritionist Rosemary Stanton said missing meals, particularly breakfast, posed serious health and developmental risks for children.

"There's a chain reaction of not having enough food," she told AAP, ahead of a forum on food insecurity at NSW Parliament House on Tuesday.

"It has an affect on your concentration levels, and then that has an affect on your behaviour, which then has an affect on your future ability to learn.

"There's also the affect of not having enough nutrients. Follow that up with trying to have anything that'll give you a few calories, having an increased risk of being overweight and type 2 diabetes, which then sets off the chain reaction for heart disease."

Dr Stanton said children who don't have enough food are also less likely to play sport because of low energy levels and their parents' inability to pay for it.

Anglicare's report found that 94 per cent of households suffering food insecurity were under rental stress.

Most relied on government support payments like Newstart and had little to no money left for food after paying rent and other necessary bills.

Anglicare is one of a number of organisations calling for the federal government to increase the Newstart allowance by at least $50 a week to help with the rising costs.

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