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Recommended: Summary on the effects of poverty on children

The aim of this essay is to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a relationship between poverty and its impact on children’s and young people’s health. Childhood is one of the most vulnerable periods in the human life-cycle and the health of children could suffer most as a result of poverty and its associated privations.
Currently in Britain, 3.5 million of children are growing up in poverty (www.barnardos.org.uk). There is no official definition of poverty in the UK, but in 1995 United Nations adopted two definitions of poverty. These are: absolute poverty and relative poverty.
Absolute poverty is defined as a condition characterised by severe deprivation of essential human needs, including safe drinking water, food, health, shelter, sanitation facilities, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services (Alcock, 1993).
Relative poverty in the UK today refers to people who are considerably worse off than the majority of the population. Lack of resources imposes limits on housing, nutrition and leisure choices and they must forgo goods and services seen as ‘necessities’ by their fellow citizens (www.jrf.org.uk).
Children are at utmost risk of poverty, if they live in a household where nobody works. However within the UK, 63 per cent of children living in poverty are in a family where someone works, which means child poverty is mainly defined in relative terms – that is, as the share of children whose family income is below a certain percentage of the national mean or median family income (nspcc.org.uk).
Childhood is a period of human development when the pace of growth and maturation is more rapid than at any other time of life. The human’s right to survive and develop is an ultimate p...

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...ng child poverty. These agencies include: district councils, transport authorities, the police and criminal justice systems and health authorities (www.cpag.org.uk).

Works Cited

HM Treasury (2008) Ending Child Poverty: Everybody’s Business. London: Crown.
Available at: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/3/F/bud08_childpoverty
Hirsch, D. (2006a) What will it Take to End Child Poverty? Firing on all cylinders. York: JRF.

TUC (2007) Cutting the Cost of Child Poverty. TUC.
Available at http://www.tuc.org.uk/publications/viewPub.cfm?frmPubID=525

Roberts, H. (2000) What Works in Reducing Inequalities in Child Health? London: Barnardo’s.

Young children’s health and well being Angela Underdown 2007 library book

HM Treasury (2004) Chid Poverty Review. London: The Stationery Office.

Bowlby, J. (1969) Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. New York: Basic Books.

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