We really do think the quality of analysis needs to rise on this subject

Another one of those claims that kids are all so fat these days they’re about to pop if the diabetes doesn’t get them first. For a start, as Chris Snowdon keeps pointing out, none of us should believe the numbers about obesity in children in the first place. In this particular piece the relative measure of child poverty is used to show that parents cannot afford food. But relative poverty isn’t the correct measure of not being able to afford food in the slightest - we need absolute poverty for that. Which isn’t the measure being used.

We’re also amused by the insistence that the use of food banks is a measure of how bad the problem is rather than an alleviation of it. However, we think this is a just lovely example of how bad the thinking is in this area:

Compare this to analysis from Impact on Urban Health, which found that simply expanding free school meals to all children in state-funded education settings in England would inject £41.3bn into the economy and the way forward should be clear.

That analysis is here and no, really, just no. The world doesn't work that way. As even a moment of thought will tell us.

GDP - that’s the measure we use of the economy after all - is the final value of output (or if we prefer, incomes or consumption) at market prices. So, if we remove something from market prices - decide to offer something free instead of charge for it - then we reduce GDP. Because we’ve just reduced the amount of economic activity we’re measuring by our use of market prices. QED.

We agree entirely that GDP doesn’t measure everything, not even everything important. And yet this is still true. We’re not going to gain additions to our economy by making something free. The claim we are just shows that folk aren’t thinking on this subject.