Student Goes Without Food For Seven Days

Chris Malla a student at Hull University went without food for seven days after witnessing some homeless people being moved on by police.

After what he saw Chris tweeted but made a typo that he said took away the effect he was hoping to have.

A story published on The Hullfire this week details how Chris acted on that tweet and devised what he described as an ‘awareness plan’ on his walk home.

Chris writes;

‘There are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK right now who live in dire poverty, and are unable to eat at least once a day.’

This gets little to no coverage in the media aside from when someone talks about food banks. People who are beyond the breadline seldom talk about it too, so I decided to not eat for at least a week.’

Chris started his quest on the 5th March, at the time he was just over 8st and by the end, he was just over 7st. This, however, was not a weight loss exercise. It was about trying to understand how it is to go without food and the daily grind.

Reading his notes it appears that Day 4 is when things start to hit home, it is on this day he writes;

‘The amount of people who are telling me they’re hungry is getting annoying now.’

On day five Chris faces a tough challenge when while at a friends house they serve up pizza.

He recalls the moment in his notes writing;

‘I very nearly cracked when it all came out smelling delicious, but I told people I’d just eaten when they offered me some.’

On the final day 10lbs lighter, Chris begins to eat again, starting with bread and soup. In his conclusion, he highlights the prominence of food in everyday life.

He writes;

‘There is a LOT of food around us that we don’t notice – in adverts, in peoples’ hands, on sale – and when you know you can’t have a share of it, it is an isolating experience.’

I do not know Chris, what I do know is that by doing what he did we get the slightest insight into how it is for people in a modern society who are unable to feed themselves.

His tweet may never of reached the expectation levels he thought when he sent it but what followed certainly caught my attention and that of many others.

There is no reason why anyone in a modern UK should go without food, but they do while many of us just turn a blind eye to it. Chris chose to open his eyes and amazingly went further by stepping into the shoes of those who do not have the luxury of eating every day.

Chris himself has had an amazing reaction to what he has done, something he was not expecting he said;

“It’s been a humbling experience, I’ve had people come up to me saying it’s changed their lives and that they gave to the homeless today because of my article, I was honestly not expecting anything like that.”