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Food Poverty and Health

Poverty is an extremely emotive issue, particularly the notion of ‘food poverty’, which for most people conjures up images of starving Third World children. So surely nobody in 21st Century Scotland suffers from food poverty?

But the reality is that we live in a society where malnutrition is having a devastating impact on the health and wellbeing of a significant proportion of the population. Your material wealth and where you live can have a massive influence on your health, reflected in high levels of preventable chronic disease and lower life expectancy.

While its true that nobody in present day Scotland experiences the absolute poverty afflicting some developing nations, relative poverty and the resultant health inequalities are still very much a feature of our social landscape. The inequalities gap, that is the difference from those who are doing averagely well and those who are most deprived, continues to widen.

It has long been recognised that experience of living in low-income circumstances will significantly increase your chances of suffering and dying from diet-related diseases such as cancer, stroke and coronary heart disease.

Our work has shown that most people living in areas with high levels of deprivation would like to eat a healthier diet but find it difficult to make changes due to circumstances outwith their individual control. Issues relating to Access, Availability, Affordability, Attitudes & Aptitudes inhibit people’s ability to make desired changes. ECFI’s work is focused on working with communities, organisations and individuals to address these systemic and environmental barriers and create opportunities for positive behavioural change.
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Living in poverty means living with a restricted range of choices and opportunities. Knowledge, confidence and skills are eroded through long term reliance on low cost, low quality processed foods

There are a number of definitions currently applied to the idea of poverty. Here are some brief explanations relating to some of these terms.

Absolute poverty is based on defining a fixed cut off point indicating a level of basic human needs and human rights. Levels of inequality can increase even while the number of people living in absolute poverty decreases.

Relative poverty is a comparative measure that quantifies a level of inequality within a defined population. Levels of relative poverty can be decreased as a society becomes more equal.

Multiple Deprivation recognises that a number of quantifiable factors combine to inhibit the wellbeing and development of people and population groups. The Scottish Indicators of Multiple Deprivation uses data covering Income, Health, Employment, Housing, Education and Geography to produce a picture of how and where communities are affected by deprivation.

Social exclusion is less a definition of poverty as an indication of an effect of poverty. It shows how individuals and groups are restricted from benefiting from and participating fully in opportunities available to the general population. It results from a combination of problems associated with poverty and social deprivation, such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown.