Undernourished

Picture the scene. A child aged seven collapses in school. Teachers are concerned and a doctor is called. The child is found to be undernourished, perhaps even severely so. A Social Worker is notified and the situation of the family is examined. A hard working local councillor (yes, they do exist!) gets wind of the incident. Somewhat reluctantly, at a meeting of the City Council when the issue of poverty and a poverty strategy for the Local Authority is being discussed, the councillor brings the matter into the public domain. Cue a banner headline, ”Hungry child faints in class”, or something to that effect. The story begins to develop. 

We hear that the child's mother hasn’t enough money on Wednesday to put provisions in her fridge, because her welfare isn’t paid until Thursday. Brendan Dempsey, that wonderful man from St Vincent De Paul says he hears this on a regular basis. Now, the story has the potential to spark a media frenzy about children going to school hungry. It’s the Government’s fault, of course. Isn’t it always? 

But is it really? Before I develop this any further, and inevitably land myself in hot water, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I was personally shocked, and like Cllr Ted Tynan, upset by this story. It should not be happening in Cork in 2012. No family should find itself so hard pressed that the makings of even a rudimentary meal cannot be cobbled together at any time.

However, that having been said, a child will not reach a state of ‘severe undernourishment’, if the fridge or the cupboard are bare one night a week. They reach that state only after a period of sustained bad or unhealthy diet. Malnutrition can and does result from hunger, most definitely, but it can also come from eating the wrong food. In some cases it comes from not knowing what to eat, because your parents don’t know what to give you.

There’s a shop near my son’s school. It does a brisk trade in delicatessen items. On occasions, I’ve watched the youngsters going in armed with the money Mum or Dad had given them before driving off, and coming out, with sausage rolls, nuggets, wedges, chocolate or a fizzy drink. Junk, in other words, that while it’ll fill a belly, has no nutritional value whatsoever. Expensive junk, too, in the scheme of things, costing money that could be spent far more wisely on something a lot more beneficial. 

My kids take a lunchbox every day. They get a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a yogurt or maybe a hunk of cheese, and a small treat – perhaps a Jaffa Cake. They bring water to drink. They like bottled water, not tap. No problem, it’s dirt cheap in Lidl, and thats what they take. Nothing fancy, just good honest food, and not that expensive. The total cost of filling those two lunchboxes, five days a week, works out at less than twenty quid.

Why give them a fiver each every morning to buy crap, when we can send them off with a healthy packed lunch for less than half that? It’s something we both learnt from our own parents, who didn’t believe in lunchtime shopping trips for ‘rubbish’.

Now comes the bit that’s going to get me into trouble. The misfortunate parent of the undernourished child apparently told Ted Tynan that her fridge and cupboards were bare at least one night a week. That’s awfully sad, and I hope to God that someone like Brendan Dempsey has now stocked her larder and her fridge with a good grocery shop. However, listening to the isue being discussed on Neil’s programme, I had another thought. It occurred to me that as well has having to deal with a shortage of money, maybe this parent, who rightly remains anonymous, is in need of more help than just a restocked larder. 

Does she perhaps not know what to buy? Does she lack some parenting or homemaking skills? As I said earlier, the child did not get malnourished overnight, and perhaps that parent needs some help and maybe even a little bit of training in how to shop for good food. She should get that help, from wherever it can be given to her. 

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him today... give him a rod and teach him to fish, and you feed him forever,” as the old adage goes. Maybe I’ll be accused of being patronising or even unkind for raising that issue, but so be it.