2nd opinion - Food for thought

The British Dietetic Association (BDA) has launched the Mind the Hunger Gap campaign to highlight the fact that, based on a National Diet and Nutrition survey, approximately one million older people living in their own homes are eating less than one meal a day.

This statistic does not include those people in a hospital or care setting; it’s those older people living in the community or, as they have become known, the ‘invisible’ population.

The BDA, founded in 1936, is the professional association for dietitians. It’s the nation’s largest membership organisation for food and nutrition professionals.

Mind the Hunger Gap has been launched as an online campaign and members of the public, politicians and allied health profession colleagues across the country are being asked to sign up to its ‘spirit’.

CSP members can visit our website to download tools to highlight the campaign locally.

The campaign has got off to a flying start, with many signing up their support. It has also ignited much interest in the media.

Having enough to eat and drink is one of the most basic human needs, yet today in the UK older people living in their own homes are simply being forgotten about or are somehow not being picked up by the system as suffering from hunger.

While The World Health Organization cites malnutrition as the greatest single threat to the world’s public health, it is still widely believed that malnutrition is restricted to the third world population. Quite simply, it is not.

More than three million people in the UK are at risk of malnutrition, according to a 2009 report by the British Association of Parental and Enteral Nutrition. The vast majority, about 93 per cent, live in the community setting, five per cent in residential care and two per cent in hospital.

For more information visit www.mindthehungergap.com If you have any questions about the campaign, contact Steven Jenkins at s.jenkins@bda.uk.com