YorkTalks 2020: Exposing the hidden consequences of food insecurity

Dr Maddy Power, Department of Health Sciences delivers the YorkTalk ‘Food for thought: exposing the hidden consequences of food insecurity in Britain and the poverty of government thinking on work and welfare’ at the University of York, January 2020.

A tide of hunger is sweeping across the UK, says independent MP Frank Field, describing the findings of a recent report by the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN). Research Fellow Dr Maddy Power argues that rather than eliminating food poverty, policy makers and their reliance on food banks, increasingly backed by supermarket chains, are in danger of 'normalising' the problem.
Drawing on research in Bradford and York, Dr Power reports from the frontline where women struggling to feed their families are battling against a welfare system that plunges them deeper into debt, increases their sense of isolation and forces them to rely on - often church-based - food banks as the UK drifts towards US-style corporate food banking.