Good quality food and nutrition is important for all of us, and especially so for people with HIV.
There are a number of reasons why that’s the case:
- Our bodies are working extra hard, together with medication, to control and manage HIV, often alongside other illnesses.
- Our livers often need good nutrition to help properly metabolise medications, so that they can work to their best effect in controlling HIV and other illnesses.
However, living with HIV often goes hand-in-hand with welfare issues that make it hard to afford food. This may be due to Universal Credit problems leaving people without benefits for weeks on end, a migrant mother afraid to seek social services support, or simply having a big unexpected bill to pay.
Regular Food Banks are great, but it can be difficult to talk about HIV as one of the reasons why you need to be there. Plus, if you have No Recourse to Public Funds and no income, then you’ll need to find food support every week (yes, we open our Food Bank on Christmas week).
