Victorian illnesses like rickets are on the rise. We need radical change to end malnutrition

When our founder Thomas Barnardo first started supporting children in Victorian East London, many of the children he helped were experiencing poor health due to malnutrition. Illnesses like rickets and scurvy were rife, with children struggling to get the nutrition they needed to survive.

Nearly 160 years later and sadly, the situation is looking increasingly similar. While poor nutrition and malnutrition might look different these days, the impact is still as profound. Our services across the country are hearing every day that parents are struggling to afford to put food on the table – and that healthy food is often out of reach. Meanwhile those Victorian illnesses like rickets, once considered eradicated, are on the rise again.

Getting a healthy, balanced diet is key to a child’s health and wellbeing – both now and long into adulthood. So how in 2025, in the sixth richest economy in the world, are children increasingly facing a future where their health is likely to be worse than that of their parents and grandparents? Rates of malnutrition and obesity in children are the highest among comparable countries.

The government has said that it wants children born today to be the “healthiest generation of children and young people”. But achieving this requires radical, and urgent change.

Today, one in four children is living in poverty, and so many families are forced to choose between putting food on the table and paying the electric bill. We know particular groups of families are more likely to be living on very low incomes, and this includes families with a disabled parent. There are 290,000 children living in poverty in a family claiming personal independence payments (PIP) – and the government must make sure that reforms to disability benefits announced this week do not drive even more children into poverty.

At Barnardo’s we’ve stepped in to help families in our services to afford the basics like a warm coat or getting the washing machine fixed – and so have charities around the country. But it simply shouldn’t be this way.

Our new report Nourishing the Future draws on insights from children, young people, and parents, as well as Barnardo’s practitioners and experts in child health and nutrition. They told us that children, young people and their parents want to eat healthier diets – but are prevented from doing so by a food system that makes healthy food too expensive and hard to access – especially for marginalised groups.

We also commissioned YouGov to survey over 2,000 parents across the UK about their experiences of buying nutritious food. We found that nearly one in five parents (19%) had to buy unhealthy food for their children because they couldn’t afford health ingredients at least once a week. The majority (60%) of those parents said they were worried about the unhealthy food they were feeding their children.

The case for action couldn’t be stronger, louder, or more urgent.

To help improve children’s diets, our report calls for an increase in the value of Healthy Start vouchers for families with young children living on the lowest budgets. These vouchers are worth just £4.25 a week, when the average weekly cost of a healthy diet according to government nutrition advice is £63 per week. The value of vouchers should, as a minimum, rise in line with inflation. And the eligibility criteria for shopping vouchers should also be expanded to all families with an income under £20,000,

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We also need to make school lunches free for all primary school children, starting with an immediate extension to all families receiving universal credit, and auto-enrolment for children who are eligible, so the onus isn’t on parents to navigate the system.

In addition, the proceeds of any future taxes on sugar or salt in foods need to be used to make healthy food affordable and accessible to children, families and communities who need it most.

Last week I stood alongside other charities, parents, teachers, school chefs and children at the Houses of Parliament – all urging the government to extend free school meals to more young people. We heard heartbreaking stories of families trying to survive, of teachers buying hungry children food out of their own pockets and children struggling to concentrate at school.

We know there’s no magic wand to fix this country’s problems – but if the government really does want children born today to be the “healthiest generation of children and young people”, it’s time to step up to the mark.

Lynn Perry is Chief Executive of Barnardo’s.

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