Parents go hungry

AUSTRALIAN parents are going hungry in order to feed their kids.

One in four Aussie parents have admitted skipping meals in order to make ends meet.

New research conducted for News Corp has uncovered the hardship parents are enduring to deal with cost of living pressures.

According to a finder.com.au survey of 1861 Australian parents, 24 per cent reported having skipped a meal in order to ensure their children don’t go hungry.

An alarming 6.6 per cent said they skipped a meal as often as once a week or more in order to make ends meet — with 6,070,316 families in Australia as of the 2016 census, that’s 378,000 who go without one meal a week in order to feed their kids.

In total, 1.5 million families have skipped a meal in order to first feed their children.

A total of 8.7 per cent reported skipping a meal only once or twice, with 5.5 per cent missing out a few times a year.

Western Australia was the most troubled state, with 28.7 per cent of parents reporting having had to skip a meal, followed by Queensland (26.3 per cent), Victoria (23.6 per cent), NSW (21.8 per cent) and South Australia (21.4 per cent).

Bessie Hassan, money expert at finder.com.au, said the findings were “really concerning”.

“Parents are in a pretty desperate situation if they have to go hungry and ration food,” she said. “When food is scarce — families health is at risk and no parent should have to go without food.”

Ms Hassan warned the situation could become even more bleak as energy prices rise and wage growth stagnates.

“This research makes one thing clear — Aussie families are closer to crisis than we think.”

Brianna Casey, CEO of Foodbank Australia said families were increasingly skipping meals — and they were coming from suburbs and households that would not traditionally be associated with financial pressure.

“We may live in the lucky country but the reality is this is a hidden crisis gripping our nation. We know there are 3.6 million Australians living with food insecurity,” she said.

Ms Casey said Malcolm Turnbull needed to step up and do more to relieve the pressure on families.