Hunger is 150% higher than the national average in one in six local authorities in the UK, a new study shows.
The study from the University of Sheffield and the Food Foundation found that the area worst affected by food security is Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, where 14% of the population is estimated to be hungry and almost 30% of the people struggling to access food .
This is closely followed by Hull in Yorkshire, where 13% of the population said they are getting hungry and more than one in five adults are struggling to access food.
The area with the least hunger, struggle or worry is St. Albans.
Researchers modeled data from the Food Foundation, which used a YouGov study that identified which local authorities are most affected by hunger in the UK.
According to the data, 4.2% of adults in January 2021 reported that they had been hungry during the previous month but could not eat at least once.
The majority of the areas in Yorkshire and the Humber are in the top 20 percentile with the largest percentages of adults getting hungry, while the majority of the authorities in the east of England are in the 20% who have the lowest levels of hunger.
Food security is the inability to consistently afford and access food that is necessary to maintain good health and well-being.
The problem has recently been highlighted due to the increase in food bank use reporting in the UK. In November 2020, the Trussell Trust saw one 47% increase in the necessary support during the pandemic.
Dr Megan Blake of the University of Sheffield Institute for Sustainable Food, who collaborated on the work, said: “Although no one should be hungry, struggle to get or worry about having enough food, in some places it is in terms of being particularly shocking , especially as we are a prosperous country. “
This new analysis of the data shows how not everyone living with food insecurity experiences hunger at the same level, making it clear that a large number of people are actively planning to go without food to make ends meet.
For some people, living on the fringes of food insecurity can mean an unexpected event like a car or boiler crash or an unexpected illness that can be the turning point that pushes food budgets.
This in turn may be associated with higher disease and obesity due to people buying cheaper foods that store longer and being more filling, over healthier choices.
Anna Taylor, CEO of the Food Foundation, said: “COVID-19 has pushed households across the UK further into difficulties and forced a newly vulnerable community to seek help for the first time.”
Data from the Food Foundation is from an online survey of 4,231 adults in the UK conducted January 29 – February 2, 2021 by YouGov.