Food Bank Use Research Articles

Managing precarity: Food bank use by low‐income women workers in a changing welfare regime

AbstractEmployment had risen to historically high levels in Britain before the coronavirus crisis; however, whereas work is traditionally conceptualized as a route out of poverty, this is no longer necessarily the case. Participation in non‐standard or low‐income work such as zero‐hour contracts, involuntary part‐time work and self‐employment is increasingly a feature of the labour market and in‐work benefits which top‐up low incomes have been pared back. This case study undertaken in the period before the coronavirus crisis takes a multi‐disciplinary approach in relation to three key questions: are working women resorting to food bank use in times of financial hardship?; to what extent is this a function of non‐standard working practices?; and is welfare reform a contributing factor? A three‐strand approach is taken: a synthesis of literature, an analysis of national data and in‐depth interviews with stakeholders involved with referrals to or delivery of emergency food provision within northern Britain. The findings highlight a growth in precarious employment models since the 2008/2009 recession and how this intersects with increasing conditionality in welfare policy. We contribute to the debate by arguing that ideological driven policy fails to acknowledge structural deficiencies in labour market demand and misattributes responsibility for managing precarious working patterns onto individuals who are already struggling to get by.

"The reality is that on Universal Credit I cannot provide the recommended amount of fresh fruit and vegetables per day for my children": Moving from a behavioural to a systemic understanding of food practices [version 1; peer review: 2 approved

BackgroundEvidence suggests that people living in poverty often experience inadequate nutrition with short and long-term health consequences. Whilst the diets of low-income households have been subject to scrutiny, there is limited evidence in the UK on the diet quality and food practices of households reporting food insecurity and food bank use. We explore lived experiences of food insecurity and underlying drivers of diet quality among low-income families, drawing upon two years of participatory research with families of primary school age children.MethodsWe report on a mixed-methods study of the relationship between low income, food bank use, food practices and consumption from a survey of 612 participants, including 136 free text responses and four focus groups with 22 participants. The research followed a parallel mixed-methods design: qualitative and quantitative data were collected separately, although both were informed by participatory work. Quantitative data were analysed using binary and multinomial logistic regression modelling; qualitative data were analysed thematically.ResultsLower income households and those living with food insecurity struggle to afford a level of fruit and vegetable consumption that approaches public health guidance for maintaining a healthy diet, despite high awareness of the constituents of a healthy diet. Participants used multiple strategies to ensure as much fruit, vegetable and protein consumption as possible within financial constraints. The quantitative data suggested a relationship between higher processed food consumption and having used a food bank, independent of income and food security status.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that individualised, behavioural accounts of food practices on a low-income misrepresent the reality for people living with poverty. Behavioural or educational interventions are therefore likely to be less effective in tackling food insecurity and poor nutrition among people on a low income; policies focusing on structural drivers, including poverty and geographical access to food, are needed.

Food Insecurity in a Low-Income, Predominantly African American Cohort Following the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objectives. To examine the impact of COVID-19 shutdowns on food insecurity among a predominantly African American cohort residing in low-income racially isolated neighborhoods.Methods. Residents of 2 low-income African American food desert neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, were surveyed from March 23 to May 22, 2020, drawing on a longitudinal cohort (n = 605) previously followed from 2011 to 2018. We examined longitudinal trends in food insecurity from 2011 to 2020 and compared them with national trends. We also assessed use of food assistance in our sample in 2018 versus 2020.Results. From 2018 to 2020, food insecurity increased from 20.7% to 36.9% (t = 7.63; P < .001) after steady declines since 2011. As a result of COVID-19, the United States has experienced a 60% increase in food insecurity, whereas this sample showed a nearly 80% increase, widening a preexisting disparity. Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (52.2%) and food bank use (35.9%) did not change significantly during the early weeks of the pandemic.Conclusions. Longitudinal data highlight profound inequities that have been exacerbated by COVID-19. Existing policies appear inadequate to address the widening gap.

Discipline and Feed: Food Banks, Pastoral Power, and the Medicalisation of Poverty in the UK

Food banks across the UK are offering basic food supplies and a range of support services to people who have been affected by years of welfare cuts and the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis. Despite a growing research interest in the drivers and experiences of food bank use, their own role in constructing and managing poverty as a social problem has been neglected. Adopting a Foucauldian approach, this study critically explored how power is exercised and subjects are formed inside three UK food banks. The localised care for the poor is shown to work through a pastoral power, which requires confessions of crises and obedience to an expert regime in the diagnosis and treatment of poverty as an individual condition. By making food aid conditional on active engagement with other support agencies, volunteers negotiate and translate neoliberal discourses of personal responsibility and active citizenship. Findings are linked to a wider critique of neoliberal government, which works through therapeutic discourses and retains disciplinary and paternalistic elements in managing poverty at a distance.

Pandemics, food (in)security, and leaving the EU: What does the Covid-19 pandemic tell us about food insecurity and Brexit

Focusing on food (in)security, this paper argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has shed light on what has been so far neglected in the on-going Brexit discussions. The current pandemic has produced startling images of empty supermarket shelves, shortages of farm workers, increased use of food banks and heightened concern over the health of those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale. We argue that food insecurity was not created by the current pandemic but is a serious underlying issue in the UK, which has not been adequately considered in discussions about Brexit. In other words, the pandemic has simply highlighted the risk that Brexit will worsen food insecurity and the health of those already disadvantaged. We argue that the pandemic provides an opportunity for UK policy makers to consider the impact of food trade deals on food insecurity, one which we urge them to take.

Free School Meals and Demand for Community Food Resources

Many community organizations provide services similar to government income assistance programs but there is little empirical evidence on how these systems interact. We examine how greater access to government nutritional aid through free school meals affects local food bank utilization by leveraging variation in the timing of schoolwide free meal programs and administrative data from largest food bank network in the United States. We find that increasing access to free meals by 10 percentage points reduces food bank use by about 0.5 percent, and up to 1 percent in areas where relatively few students previously qualified for free meals.

Social Policy Trends: Unemployment and the Use of Food Banks

Social Policy Trends: Unemployment and the Use of Food Banks

Social Policy Trends: Unemployment and the Use of Food Banks

Social Policy Trends: Unemployment and the Use of Food Banks

Working-age adults using food banks in England have significantly poorer health and higher rates of mental health conditions than adults in the general population: A cross-sectional quantitative study.

Food bank use has risen rapidly in the UK since 2010. The negative health impacts of food insecurity are well-documented, but there is a lack of quantitative research exploring the health of people using food banks, who are most often severely food insecure. To address this gap, this study compares health outcomes between working-age adults using food banks and those in the general population in England, investigating whether adults using food banks are disproportionately affected by poor health, even after accounting for socioeconomic differences. Data from a survey of 598 adults using Trussell Trust food banks in 2016-2017 were merged with data from the Health Survey for England (HSE) from 2016. Outcome variables of interest were: self-rated health, life-limiting health conditions (disability) and self-reported metabolic, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and mental health conditions. Logistic regression models were used to examine the odds of adults using food banks having health conditions, disability and poor self-rated health compared to the general population. The prevalence rates of poor self-rated health, disability, mental health disorders and musculoskeletal conditions were significantly higher among adults using food banks than the general population (p<.05 for all outcomes). These associations remained after accounting for gender, age, marital status, employment and education. This comparative study highlights the many health disadvantages among adults using food bank compared to the general population. The higher risk of poor self-rated health, disability and mental health conditions was not fully explained by measures of low socioeconomic status. Possible explanations for these findings include: first, that poor health may increase vulnerability to food insecurity, and, in turn, use of food banks; second, that experiences of food insecurity and food bank use may cause declines in health; and third, that food bank use and poor health may be joint outcomes arising from the last decade of austerity in the UK.

‘We are constantly overdrawn, despite not spending money on anything other than bills and food’: a mixed-methods, participatory study of food and food insecurity in the context of income inequality

This article reports on a participatory, mixed-methods study, of the causes and lived experiences of food insecurity in the context of an unequal city in England. Among families with young children, we find that income and housing tenure are strongly associated with food insecurity and food bank use, and these impacts extend to higher socioeconomic status groups. Higher costs of food, housing and transport associated with life in an unequal context, meant that food formed part of a series of competing pressures on household budgets. We urge future food insecurity research to focus further on these broader socioeconomic drivers of poverty.

‘The do-gooders and scroungers’: examining narratives of foodbank use in online local press coverage in the West Midlands, UK

This qualitative study using a grounded theory approach, assesses the construction of claims in online news articles and below the line comments in connection with foodbank use in the West Midlands region, UK. The sample includes 146 online news articles and 132 below the line comments, commencing 23 September 2010 until 8 April 2019. Individual foodbank users’ stories are told and these relay discourses of stigma, shame, embarrassment and desperation. In contrast, the below the line comments centre on the undeserving poor. Here, emphasis is on the migrants who are ‘flooding’ the country, and the scroungers who are work-shy.

The moral maze of food bank use

The foodbank symbolises a changing landscape of social insecurity and welfare conditionality. Attending to decision making within the foodbank system, this article argues that foodbanks, and their referral-system creates a bureaucratic ‘moral maze’ identifying people as ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ of help. Maintaining a moral distance, organised religious foodbanks are reliant upon a complex outsourcing of moral decisions and walk a fine balance between supply (donations) and demand (use). Within this article, we argue that the foodbank landscape is akin to navigating a moral maze, and that this creates, and justifies decisions of deservingness.

The Continuing Effects of Welfare Reform on Food Bank use in the UK: The Roll-out of Universal Credit

AbstractIn this paper we explore whether the recent rise in food bank usage in the UK has been induced by the roll-out of Universal Credit. We bring together official statistics on the introduction of Universal Credit with data on food bank usage from the UK’s largest food bank network. We test the relationship between Universal Credit and food parcel distribution using a range of causal identification strategies (such as fixed-effects model, Granger causality tests, and matching designs) and consistently find that an increase in the prevalence of Universal Credit is associated with more food parcel distribution. We also find that the relationship between Universal Credit and food parcel distribution is stronger in areas where food banks are active, suggesting food insecurity arising from Universal Credit may be hidden in places where food banks are largely unavailable. Though it is challenging to implement any large-scale change to social security, our analysis suggests systemic and persistent problems with this new system. Whilst the logic of Universal Credit is intuitively appealing, it has also proven to be unforgiving, leaving many struggling to make ends meet.

An overview of food insecurity in Europe and what works and what doesn’t work to tackle food insecurity

Abstract Data based on the FAO's Food Insecurity Experience Scale suggest prevalence rates as low as 3.1% in some countries, to more than 20% in others across Europe. In the past two decades, rising food bank use suggests a growing problem of severe food insecurity and is symptomatic of a lack of systematic governmental responses to hunger. In this absence, charities are often relied on to fill the gaps in the social security net. The pairing of the problem of hunger with the problem of food waste often fuels further development and entrenchment of charitable food redistribution through food banks, even though there is little evidence that these responses effectively reduce food insecurity. Research on the impacts of social security interventions, however, evidence the close links between these and food insecurity. How provision through social security systems can additionally accommodate the acquisition of sustainable and nutritious food is a challenge for the future, as current social security rates are often well below costs of living. These challenges reflect the need for systems thinking for tackling the challenges of sustainability, food insecurity, and low household incomes, underpinned by underemployment, low wages, unemployment, disability and caregiving.

Disability and social participation in Europe 2002-2016

Abstract Background Social participation is an important aspect of social inclusion and affects health, wellbeing, equality and citizenship. Informal participation is particularly important for the inclusion and wellbeing of disabled people who are a growing demographic across Europe and the world (GBD, 2017). Despite some disability rights progress such as the UNCPRD, increasing foodbank use may reflect rising prevalence of social exclusion and inequality for some disabled people. Methods Analysis of data from all countries that participated in the European Social Survey Rounds 1-8, using Stata16, assessed the extent of a relationship between informal social participation and disability (defined as being hampered by disability or ill-health in daily activities), and over time. Logistic regression was used including possible confounding variables e.g. country variation. Preliminary Findings In most years, the data showed a significant negative association between disability severity and social participation, after accounting for potential confounders. For example, in 2016 people who reported 'no' disability (OR 1.678, CI 1.102948 - 2.551828) were more likely to socialise and to have higher levels of participation than people disabled 'a lot' (OR 1.253, CI 1.097011 - 1.431516). The association fluctuated slightly over time but no clear trend was yet identifiable. Conclusions It is likely that the relationship observed reflects real inequality in social participation among disabled people, suggesting persisting significant barriers to inclusion for disabled people, which can negatively impact on people's wellbeing and broader health systems. Analysis accounted for some personal and socioeconomic barriers but not cultural or environmental barriers. Inclusion and accessibility issues become an even more acute concern (and opportunity) for policy and practice relating to equality and wellbeing when facing climate chaos: more barriers to inclusion and increased disability prevalence. Key messages Inequality indicated by lower levels of social participation of people with disabilities remains a significant concern considering personal and social costs of social isolation. Successful social inclusion improves lives of people and communities here and now and can assist in developing resilience to climate change.

Convenience versus sustainability

Convenience versus sustainability

Can’t, Won’t and What’s the Point? A Theory of the UK Public’s Muted Response to Austerity

ABSTRACT Since 2010 the UK government has undertaken extensive spending cuts which have manifested in significant reductions in welfare, local authority and justice system spending. The cuts have been linked with rising poverty, food bank use and serious health issues. Such extreme cuts are likely to affect how citizens view and interact with government. This paper argues that the theories of civic voluntarism, grievance and policy feedback in combination explain why austerity has provoked relatively little political participation in the UK.

Nutritional adequacy and content of food bank parcels in Oxfordshire, UK: a comparative analysis of independent and organisational provision.

Food bank use has increased significantly in the UK. With the rise in demand, it is imperative that users are receiving food parcels that meet their requirements. The present study aimed to explore whether typical food parcels, supplied by The Trussell Trust and independent food banks, were meeting the daily nutrient and energy requirements of an adult user. The Trussell Trust (n=2) and independent food banks (n=9) were surveyed in Oxfordshire, UK. Data were collected on food bank use, resources, donations and parcel content. The energy and nutrient contents of a representative parcel were compared with the average dietary reference values (DRVs) for an adult. Additional comparisons were made between The Trussell Trust and independent provision. Parcels provided energy, carbohydrate, sugar, protein and fibre contents that significantly exceeded the DRVs. In total, 62.2% of energy was provided as carbohydrate and 569% of the DRV was provided by sugars. The vitamin D and retinol content of the parcels was significantly lower than the DRVs, meeting 25% and 27% of users' needs respectively; provision of all other micronutrients exceeded the DRVs. The Trussell Trust's parcels provided significantly less vitamin D and copper than independent parcels. Food bank parcels distributed in Oxfordshire, UK, exceeded energy requirements and provided disproportionately high sugar and carbohydrate and inadequate vitamin A and vitamin D compared to the UK guidelines. Improved links with distributors and access to cold food storage facilities would help to address these issues, via increased fresh food provision.

Using action learning to tackle food insecurity in Scotland

ABSTRACTIn the context of a dramatic rise in food bank use in Scotland, the A Menu for Change project, delivered by Oxfam Scotland, Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, Nourish Scotland and The Poverty Alliance, aimed to reduce the need for emergency food aid by improving local responses to food insecurity. Between 2017 and 2019, project officers worked with key stakeholders in Dundee City, East Ayrshire and Fife to identify and address challenges that people experiencing acute food insecurity face in accessing all the financial support and advice to which they are entitled. The project employed a cross-sectoral and multi-level approach in these three local authority areas. This account reviews the way action learning was used by the A Menu for Change project in Scotland, including an example of how one presentation led to practical changes in local referral patterns. The project demonstrated that action learning can be a useful approach for creating, supporting and developing relationships across complex systems and a mechanism for establishing the groundwork for social change. Facilitators learned that there is a need to work closely with stakeholders inside and outside the set to ensure the benefits of reflective learning influence policy and practice change.

Pandemics, Food (In)Security, and Leaving the EU: What Does the COVID-19 Pandemic Tell Us About Food Insecurity and Brexit

Focusing on food (in)security, this paper argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has shed light on what has been so far neglected in the on-going Brexit discussions. The current pandemic has produced startling images of empty supermarket shelves, shortages of farm workers, increased use of food banks and heightened concern over the health of those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale due to the lockdown. We argue that food insecurity was not created by the current pandemic but is a serious underlying issue in the UK, which has not been adequately considered in discussions about Brexit. In other words, the pandemic has simply highlighted the risk that Brexit will worsen food insecurity and the health of those already disadvantaged. We argue that the pandemic provides an opportunity for UK policy makers to consider the impact of food trade deals on food insecurity, one which we urge them to take.