A TEENAGER on Panorama’s Surviving The Cost Of Living Crisis episode has admitted she had forfeited eating to feed her siblings.
The young girl called Bethan opened up in harrowing scenes on the BBC One show that she and her mum Rebecca only had enough food for two.
Viewers were left in shock as the teen confessed that she sometimes goes without eating so there is enough for the rest of her family.
Her mum Rebecca – a single mother of three who works as a nurse – detailed she too went hungry as they struggled to make ends meet.
Bethan emotionally told the camera as she sat in her bedroom that she “worried” her mum wasn’t getting enough food.
It led the teen to occasionally refuse meals in order for her mum to eat, as well as allowing her “brother and sister” to have what little they have.
READ MORE ON THE COST OF LIVING CRISIS
“I do see my mum skipping meals sometimes so that we can have ours and it makes me sometimes worry because I do worry if she’s getting enough of what she needs to be alright,” Bethan admitted.
She added: “Sometimes if we don’t have much in the cupboards, I let my brother and sister have that. I do sometimes worry we won’t cope.”
Mum Rebecca added that she had been pushed to breaking point over the stress of the cost of living, but carries on for her three kids.
“Whatever happens, I have three children to provide for,” she said.
Viewers flooded Twitter to share their heartache over the harrowing scenes, which they dubbed a “hard watch”.
“I simply cried watching those struggling families on Panorama. Helpless and hopeless,” one fan wrote, as a second echoed: “Heartbreaking.”
“Kids watching parents not eat and deciding to leave food in the cupboard for younger siblings is heartbreaking,” a third said.
A fourth added: “For a teenager to openly admit she lets her siblings eat rather than her is a damming indictment of Britain in 2022.”
“This is a hard watch,” a fifth said as a sixth concluded: “Watching this and feeling incredible sad and pure rage.”
It comes after consumer champion Matrin Lewis warned “civil unrest isn’t far away” as Brits suffer amid the cost of living crisis.
The Money Saving Expert, who was moved to tears during a radio appearance as he heard of people’s hardship, said many have “nothing left to cut back on“.
It’s particularly true for middle-income earners who are finding themselves unable to pay their bills as the cost of food and heating surges, he said.
Mr Lewis said if Rishi Sunak doesn’t act quickly, he could face yet more problems from furious and terrified families who are “tearing their hair out”.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Mr Lewis said: “For people towards the bottom end, there’s nothing to cut back on.
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“It is not an exaggeration to say that there are people we have to prevent freezing or starving. We need to keep people fed. We need to keep them warm.
“If we get this wrong right now, then we get to the point where we start to risk civil unrest. When breadwinners cannot provide, anger brews and civil unrest brews – and I do not think we are very far off.”
