Living is more important than just surviving - listening to children about food insecurity

Date: 1st November 2016
Category: Right to life, survival and development

This new report was commissioned by the Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland and delivered in partnership with Home-Start UK Scotland.

Through semi-structured discussions with 32 children from Renfrewshire, Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh, the authors found that children as young as 5 have a nuanced understanding of what food children need to grow big and strong, the causes of food insecurity, the consequences of food insecurity, who bears responsibility for making sure children have the food they need, the solutions to food insecurity, and how to better listen to children.

The Children and Young People's Commissioner is using this report to call for a top-up on child benefit, and Nourish Scotland will be using it to further inform their Right to Food campaign and their work on the prospective Good Food Nation Bill. As one child said in a role-play activity addressing the First Minister: "listen to everything that every child says to her and take it all in and write it down and do all she can."

• Download the report "Living is more than just surviving" here.