Poor Kids, Poor Nutrition

An extensive study on child nutrition has revealed that Germany's long-term unemployed cannot offer their families a well-balanced diet.

"It's hardly possible for these welfare recipients to feed their children healthy food," said Mathilde Kersting from the Research Institute for Child Nutrition (FKE) in Dortmund.

Children in families getting long-term unemployment welfare, known as Hartz IV, aren't going hungry. But they are not eating the right types of food, Kersting said.

The study showed that the welfare payments had a daily allowance for food and beverages for children of 2.57 euros ($3.50) and for teenagers over 14 years 3.42 euros.

But, Kersting said, even if families shopped at discount supermarkets, an average of 4.68 euros per day was necessary to still the appetite of a growing teenager with a balanced diet. For four- to six year-olds, the allowance would just cover their needs if the groceries were bought at a discounter, she said.

Health problems are the outcome

According to Kersting, weight problems were the result. In Germany today, some 6 percent of all children and teenagers are overweight. In low-income families, it was more than double this figure, she said.

Kersting said this could lead to serious chronic illnesses, such as diabetes or arteriosclerosis, a thickening of the arterial walls.

"So in an economic sense, it's worthwhile for everyone to invest in a healthy diet," Kersting said.

Increased awareness is also necessary

The FKE said it recommended that benefit payments be reviewed. But simply more money was not the answer.

"It's also important to convince these groups of the use of a well-balanced diet," Kersting said. "We have to develop simple measures which can be implemented so that our nutritional information can reach these families better than it does up to now."

FKE researchers compiled the prices of over 80 kinds of food which are necessary for a healthy diet. They then calculated the costs for an optimized mixed diet -- a concept developed by FKE which aims to ensure healthy nutrition for children and teenagers at comparatively low costs.

Germany needs to improve its childcare system

In a separate study, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation found that children from less-educated families were less likely to attend a nursery school.

The problems children from all levels of society faced were the same, though. The country needed to do much more to ensure adequate care for small children, the study on early childhood education and care in Germany revealed.

Co-author Ilse Wehrmann said daycare workers and nursery teachers needed to be better trained to adequately care for children under the age of three. Germany was 15 to 20 years behind its European neighbors in this aspect and had a lot of catching up to do, Wehrmann said.

"They cannot even diagnose developmental disorders among small children," Wehrmann said at the presentation of the study in Berlin on Wednesday.

German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen has pushed through new childcare policies to significantly increase the number of daycare spots for young children in the next five years. The efforts are a bid to make it easier for mothers to work and to reverse the declining birthrate.

Child groups in daycare facilities were also frequently too large, the foundation said.