Affordability and accessibility of healthy food for children - Position statement

Two out of five households in New Zealand struggle to afford good food. Healthy food supports a healthy heart and wellbeing, so it is important to work out ways of ensuring families have access to healthy food.

It is a priority for the Heart Foundation to support healthier eating for children/tamariki and families/whanau. However, healthier eating will be difficult to achieve when so many families in New Zealand struggle to afford and access the food their family needs. Statistics show that two-out-of-five households in New Zealand experience food poverty.

1. Food poverty occurs when people do not have assured access to affordable, acceptable and healthy food, usually because of insufficient income.  

2. For one-in-fourteen households, it is so severe they must rely on other people, grants or food banks to acquire the food they need.