Akshay Patra Foundation has been working with Burgees Sports Foundation to combat rising child hunger, obesity and hyperactivity as a result of increased consumption of junk food.
As a collective, Burgees Sports runs various kinds of camps during holiday terms for close to 60-80 kids which encourages them to be more physically active. These weekly sessions run for long hours during which children brought plain sandwiches as packed lunches.
“I started noticing that some children would bring nothing whereas some would bring very low quality sandwiches that would hardly be filling leave aside being nutritional in value,” said Ally, the Chief Executive Officer of Burgees Sports Foundation.
“When we came here, we started the fundraising outpost because child poverty is evident in the UK wherein many children are skipping meals but some also suffer through 'hidden hunger'- something that we need to be extremely concerned about today,” said Neha Agarwal, communications manager, Akshay Patra Foundation-
Hidden hunger can usually be explained as the increase in the consumption of junk food that is easily available and relatively cheap in comparison to hot meals and fresh food rich in nutrition. This usually means that most children opt for white bread sandwiches, crisps and fizzy drinks for their lunch. The situation is most dire when during the 10-12 weeks of holidays children from deprived and low income families don't have access to free school meals. Our food varies from vegetable curry and Chappatis, to fruits, and vegetable pastas among other wholemeal and nutritious food stuff,” said Neha.
“One of the biggest issues we face is that children come into our sports camps with sugar candies stuffed in their pockets aside from processed food for lunch which causes them to be hyperactive,” said Ismaeel, one of the coaches at Burgess Sports.
According to a report by the Environmental Audit Committee one in five children in the UK live in homes that are severely food insecure.
