{"id":11118,"date":"2019-10-12T22:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-10-12T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/2019\/10\/12\/hunger-report-reveals-victoria\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T12:41:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T02:41:46","slug":"hunger-report-reveals-victoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/hunger-report-reveals-victoria\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunger Report reveals food insecurity in Victoria is on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"section page-element\" data-pb-label=\"Section\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"container\" data-pb-label=\"Container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"column flex\" data-pb-label=\"Column\"><div class=\"w-full px-4 md:flex-1\"><h2>Hunger Report reveals food insecurity in Victoria is on the rise<\/h2>\n<p>Foodbank&#8217;s latest Hunger Report reveals that women in Australia are 50% more likely to experience food insecurity than men. In fact, a quarter of all women have experienced food insecurity in some form in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>The Foodbank Hunger Report 2019 discloses that the events that make women susceptible to food stress are also different to those for men. Women are significantly more likely at some time in their lives to have experienced domestic violence or financial abuse or raised children on their own for an extended time. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to have been unable to find a job for a lengthy period.<\/p>\n<p>The Foodbank Hunger Report, now in its seventh year, surveys 2,000 charities and 1,000 individuals experiencing food insecurity from around the country. Foodbank Victoria CEO, Dave McNamara, explained that the report aims to better understand and explore what is a growing social crisis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe impacts of food insecurity are far beyond just feeling hungry. The report highlights the devastating mental health and wellbeing implications of experiencing food insecurity \u2013 especially for women,\u201d said Mr McNamara.<\/p>\n<p>Alarmingly, the data shows that 70% of food insecure Australians experience high or very high levels of psychological distress compared to only 13% of the general population. With mothers twice as likely as fathers to feel like a bad parent when there is not enough food in the house.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe face of hunger in this country is changing. And sadly, it\u2019s some of the most vulnerable in our community who are suffering. Feelings of shame, guilt and embarrassment, tend to act as barriers for people accessing food relief.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo parent should have to wonder how they are going to put food on the table for their families. It\u2019s heartbreaking and distressing that this is occurring right here, in our own backyard,\u201d said Mr McNamara.<\/p>\n<p>In Victoria, Foodbank currently works with over 430 charity partners to provide enough food for 1.2 million meals a month. Concerningly, Victorian charities have reported a 25% increase in the number of people seeking food relief over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the rising cost of living, we\u2019ve seen the demand for food relief continue to rise. Despite assisting more than 140,000 Victorians monthly, our partners have reported an estimated 8,000 Victorians are unable to be assisted each month due to lack of resources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow many Australians need to go hungry before we see real action to address this hunger crisis?\u201d Mr McNamara said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt a federal level, we need a bi-partisan, whole-of-government plan to tackle the crisis. We are calling for a commitment to introduce a National Food Security Strategy to ensure we achieve zero hunger in Australia by 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4><strong>MEDIA ENQUIRIES<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Alexa Viani<br \/>\nMarketing &amp; Communications Officer<br \/>\n<a href=\"mailto:alexav@foodbankvictoria.org.au\">alexav@foodbankvictoria.org.au<\/a><br \/>\n0466 459 266 or 03 9362 8333<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Foodbank&#8217;s latest Hunger Report reveals that women in Australia are 50% more likely to experience food insecurity than men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[235,236,244],"tags":[132],"class_list":["post-11118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-releases","category-news","category-vic","tag-media-release"],"acf":[],"formatted_date":"October 12, 2019","raw_html":"<section class=\"section page-element\" data-pb-label=\"Section\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"container\" data-pb-label=\"Container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"column flex\" data-pb-label=\"Column\"><div class=\"w-full px-4 md:flex-1\"><h2>Hunger Report reveals food insecurity in Victoria is on the rise<\/h2>\n<p>Foodbank&#8217;s latest Hunger Report reveals that women in Australia are 50% more likely to experience food insecurity than men. In fact, a quarter of all women have experienced food insecurity in some form in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>The Foodbank Hunger Report 2019 discloses that the events that make women susceptible to food stress are also different to those for men. Women are significantly more likely at some time in their lives to have experienced domestic violence or financial abuse or raised children on their own for an extended time. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to have been unable to find a job for a lengthy period.<\/p>\n<p>The Foodbank Hunger Report, now in its seventh year, surveys 2,000 charities and 1,000 individuals experiencing food insecurity from around the country. Foodbank Victoria CEO, Dave McNamara, explained that the report aims to better understand and explore what is a growing social crisis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe impacts of food insecurity are far beyond just feeling hungry. The report highlights the devastating mental health and wellbeing implications of experiencing food insecurity \u2013 especially for women,\u201d said Mr McNamara.<\/p>\n<p>Alarmingly, the data shows that 70% of food insecure Australians experience high or very high levels of psychological distress compared to only 13% of the general population. With mothers twice as likely as fathers to feel like a bad parent when there is not enough food in the house.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe face of hunger in this country is changing. And sadly, it\u2019s some of the most vulnerable in our community who are suffering. Feelings of shame, guilt and embarrassment, tend to act as barriers for people accessing food relief.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo parent should have to wonder how they are going to put food on the table for their families. It\u2019s heartbreaking and distressing that this is occurring right here, in our own backyard,\u201d said Mr McNamara.<\/p>\n<p>In Victoria, Foodbank currently works with over 430 charity partners to provide enough food for 1.2 million meals a month. Concerningly, Victorian charities have reported a 25% increase in the number of people seeking food relief over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the rising cost of living, we\u2019ve seen the demand for food relief continue to rise. Despite assisting more than 140,000 Victorians monthly, our partners have reported an estimated 8,000 Victorians are unable to be assisted each month due to lack of resources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow many Australians need to go hungry before we see real action to address this hunger crisis?\u201d Mr McNamara said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt a federal level, we need a bi-partisan, whole-of-government plan to tackle the crisis. We are calling for a commitment to introduce a National Food Security Strategy to ensure we achieve zero hunger in Australia by 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4><strong>MEDIA ENQUIRIES<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Alexa Viani<br \/>\nMarketing &amp; Communications Officer<br \/>\n<a href=\"mailto:alexav@foodbankvictoria.org.au\">alexav@foodbankvictoria.org.au<\/a><br \/>\n0466 459 266 or 03 9362 8333<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/section>","ACF":false,"featured_image_url":"","author_name":"angus@foodbank.org.au","spinnr_header":"default_spinnr_header","spinnr_mobile_menu":"default_spinnr_mobile_menu","spinnr_footer":"default_spinnr_footer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15141,"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11118\/revisions\/15141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foodbank.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}