A small monthly budget for food has far more implications than you might think. On the one hand, studies show that people with little money often eat unhealthily. At the same time, so-called nutritional poverty also has social and cultural effects, as Tina Bartelmess, junior professor of nutritional sociology at the University of Bayreuth, explains.
For example, those affected could not give their child a birthday cake to take to daycare or invite friends over. “Anyone who is so poor that they have to think about how to get their child fed cannot organize birthday parties for them or afford overnight guests,” she explains.
Hardly any surveys on food poverty
“Nutrition is a social phenomenon that has a lot to do with social integration,” said Bartelmess. “People eat together and thereby define their identity, so to speak.” However, people who do not have the money to eat in a health-conscious manner and according to certain culturally accepted diets are excluded from this.
According to Bartelmess, it is not known how many people in Germany are affected by all aspects of food poverty. According to the most recent poverty and wealth report, around 16 percent of the German population lives below the poverty line – and it is generally assumed that a certain proportion of them are also affected by food poverty, explained the researcher. The unemployed, people with a migration background, single parents with several children and senior citizens are particularly at risk of poverty.
Bartelmess and her team at the Kulmbach campus of the University of Bayreuth are researching which factors lead to food poverty and how this can be overcome or alleviated. So little is known about this because food poverty is not systematically recorded statistically and because it is hardly visible, said Bartelmess. “Financial poverty is very embarrassing because society often perceives it as self-inflicted.”
