Number of Brits hospitalised by malnutrition QUADRUPLES
THE number of people hospitalised because of malnutrition has quadrupled in the last 10 years and has been labelled “a national scandal”.
An increasing number of people are being helped due to malnutrition
Spiralling food prices has resulted in more people relying on food banks
It is a national scandal
According to the NHS, there are an estimated three million malnourished people in the UK at any time.
Campaigners believe increased food prices, lower wages and benefit cuts are to blame.
Professor of public heath at Liverpool University, Simon Capewell, said: “It is a national scandal.
“The fifth wealthiest country on the planet is now suffering from Victorian diseases such as malnutrition, rickets, scurvy. These figures are shocking and need to be a real wake up call.”
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Professor Capewell said that for every person admitted to hospital for malnourishment, there will be 50 times that number getting care from their GP.
Last year more than a million people accessed food banks because they were not able to afford their own food.
The professor also highlighted that between 2007 and 2014 food prices rose 12 per cent, but wages dropped seven per cent.
Labour MP Frank Field, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on hunger, said: “The new data on malnutrition, as well as the data we have uncovered on the numbers of children who are underweight and anaemic, paints a grim picture of life at the bottom of the pile.”
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According to Mr Field, 20 per cent of children arrive hungry each morning to school.
Tesco’s UK chief executive Matt Davies has warned that an increase in food prices will be “lethal” for struggling families.
He said: “When family budgets are constrained, families end up buying the cheapest possible calories, which are often the least healthy, but become essential for mere survival.”