{"id":1582,"date":"2020-10-29T17:28:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T17:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewitnessexet.wpengine.com\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2020-11-07T13:01:55","modified_gmt":"2020-11-07T13:01:55","slug":"should-poor-children-be-allowed-to-eat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/?p=1582","title":{"rendered":"Should poor children be allowed to eat?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Marcus Rashford is, in the eyes of many, a hero. How long could you last without food? Presumably not a whole summer, and that is what Rashford saved millions of children from this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a child is eligible for free school meals, they normally only get given them during term time, which seems odd given that a family does not suddenly gain more wealth just because it\u2019s the summer holidays. In a normal year, this is shortsighted and dangerous, putting children at risk for not being born rich. This year, however, in keeping with the saying \u2018the rich get richer and the poor get poorer\u2019, income of the poorest quintile has dropped around 4%, whereas the wealthy now hold more of the wealth than ever<\/a>. What this means is that affording meals is simply just not possible for all. Whatever fantasy land the tories are living in where everyone can arrive at their dinner table every day to a hot meal is certainly not the same land millions of children are living in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free\nschool meals have existed ever since 1879, when Manchester started\ngiving out some free meals<\/a> after school was made mandatory in the 1870s, leading to many\npoor children being forced to go in hungry. Following this, there were attempts\nat increasing free school meals in 1906 and 1921, but both times the decision\nwas left in the hands of the local authorities who mostly chose not to do\nanything. However, this all changed in 1944 when the Butler Act created\na massive shift in the education system<\/a>. Free school meals were now available for\nchildren, with free milk later following in 1946. Until this point, provision\nof free school meals had been on an upward trajectory, with them gradually\nbecoming more accessible, but then Thatcher happened. Before Thatcher was \u2018The\nIron Lady\u2019, she was \u2018Thatcher, the milk\nsnatcher\u2019<\/a>,\nand this is because she ended the provision of free milk for many children in\n1971. Thatcher\u2019s early milk-snatching habits extended throughout her term as\nPrime Minister, with her cutting the number of eligible children in 1986.\nDespite this, the number of students claiming free school meals is now at 1.4\nmillion, with a further\n900,000 having applied over lockdown<\/a>, potentially bringing that number to over 2\nmillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite\nthe obvious benefit of free school meals being that children don\u2019t starve, it\nis apparent that some people in this country need more convincing about the\nbenefit of free school meals being available. A 2013 report found\nthat<\/a> free\nschool meals makes children less fussy about their food and creates a \u2018leveling\neffect\u2019 between classmates so that poorer pupils can be more equal to their\npeers. It also eases financial stress for parents and increases healthy eating.\nBetter yet, free schools meals also increase attainment according to the\nreport. Therefore, providing free school meals has a clearly positive impact.\nIt makes no sense to not extend it to also cover eligible pupils during\nholidays. A family doesn\u2019t suddenly get more money because it\u2019s half term, and\nmany of the benefits of free school meals aren\u2019t even restricted to just the\nclassroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even\nignoring empirical data, surely feeding poor children is just the right thing\nto do. How can the concept of a deserving and an undeserving poor possibly\napply to children? Children haven\u2019t even had a chance to do anything to make\nthem undeserving. There\u2019s absolutely no way of arguing that wealthy adults who\nare guilty of crimes are more deserving of a healthy diet than children,\nregardless of what horrible sin this hypothetical child has somehow managed to\nfind time to commit in their short life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps\nsome think that the impact of free school meals is overstated, however research\ncertainly shows that taking away free school meals is dangerous. Studies show\nthat an unhealthy diet\nnegatively impacts health and also attainment<\/a>, meaning that if free school meals are not\nproperly reaching the children who need them year-round, it will have lifelong\neffects on their long term health, and also employment prospects later on if\nthe impact on their education is too grave. Further down the line, if children\ntoday aren\u2019t getting propre food, it will have a permanent impact on cognitive\nability, social development, and attainment, that will only deepen the class\ndivide, as these poor children become victim to a government who thinks that\nit\u2019s the parents\u2019 fault for not selling the\npearls that they supposedly all own<\/a>. Another Conservative MP argued that providing free\nschool meals increases dependency<\/a>, as children are not supposed to be\ndependent and starving a child is better than showing them that their\ngovernment cares enough to feed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether\nor not children deserve to eat shouldn’t be a debate. Children, and also\nadults, need food in order to function, and not providing it only punishes them\nfor being born into a poor family. Through no fault on the part of the\nchildren, millions have been condemned by The Conservatives to go hungry at a time\nwhen more families than\never are in a fragile position<\/a> and a free lunch may be the only proper meal\nsome children get in a day. Any argument against free school meals seems to\npale when faced with the reality that despite any neoliberal ideological ideas\nabout free school meals creating a dependency culture, surely we are better off\nwith dependent children than dead children.<\/p>\n

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Marcus Rashford is, in the eyes of many, a hero. How long could you last without food? Presumably not a whole summer, and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-british","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}