‘Food is one of four things you must get right, if you like having a roof on your prison’ said a prison governor back in 2006, 'The other three are visits, mail and hot water.' When it comes to prison food, this is a sentiment shared by the majority of those who work or pass through the system. And that's reflected in fiction too - barely an episode of Orange is the New Black goes by without the subject of food cropping up - in fact, it forms the backbone of many of its storylines.
Whether it’s hooch made from mouldy bread or religious conversions for the dietary perks, the show gives you a feel of what an important factor food is in daily prison life. And just as the new season of the show sees inmates rioting (although not about the quality of the food per se), just over a year ago an inmate at HMP Northumberland staged a protest on a high railing after receiving a cold meal.
But how does the link between diet and wellbeing play out in real life for young women in prisons? It’s one of the questions I was asking myself when late last year, I made the decision to temporarily step outside my career comfort zone in the fashion and beauty industry and submerge myself in Her Majesty’s Prison Service. I launched Food Behind Bars in December - a campaign raising awareness around prison food standards in the UK, with the ultimate aim of improving them. Prison news at the time was dominated by riots, deaths and drugs; to some it seemed like a strange time to be urging the government to look at diet as a contributing factor to the increasing disruption in jail, but if you’re a young woman in prison, diet can create a very unique set of issues in an already intense environment.
Firstly (and unsurprisingly) choice is limited. When you have a menu sheet to choose from which is on a 4 week rotation, your diet hits a bit of a groundhog day. Carbohydrates feature heavily - dinner is almost always served with a choice of either rice or potatoes - and fruit and veg are severely lacking. One woman who served three years told me the first thing she did when she was released was go into Morrisons and buy fresh salad and chicken breast, ‘I made up a little salad on the train back and ate it straight away. Even now I absolutely love salad because I just didn’t have it in prison.’
Despite women only making up 5% of the prison population, they account for a disproportionate amount of the system’s mental health issues. According to the charity Women in Prison, 28% of prison self-harm incidents are by women and females in custody are five times more likely to have a mental health concern than women in the outside world. Just as concerning are the rates of domestic violence - 53% of women in prison report having experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse during childhood.
Statistics like these paint a picture of a gender who are arguably at their most vulnerable in a prison environment. Poor nutrition only accentuates any existing feelings of low self-worth and there are plenty of studies showing that a high-carb, high-sugar diet leads to (or worsens) mental health issues. What happens when you add in boredom, family separation, lack of exercise and fresh air? From what women have told me, the situation can become mentally and physically damaging quite quickly.
One person who knows more about prisoner wellbeing than most is Clare McGregor, a prison life coach, founder of the organisation Coaching Inside and Out and author of the book Coaching Behind Bars.
‘Coaching is extremely useful for anyone who wants to change’ she told me, ‘A great coach can help you work out what you want to change and how you can change it. With individuals with low self esteem, it can be a case of not daring to think you can change.’
One of Clare’s very first clients was a female prisoner who wanted to lose weight – ‘a goal linked to so many needs and emotions’. After their first session, and with only a nudge of encouragement from Clare, her client decided to ask the doctor to take her off the medication she knew affected her weight, “cut down on sugar and order sweeteners” and ditch her job on the prison servery where she knew she ate too much.
When she arrived to her next session (after already losing pounds) she told Clare ‘I feel better about myself. I’ve had no chocolate all week. I’ve not even thought about it.’
Weight gain, especially for women, is a common side effect of a carb-heavy prison diet. I spoke to an ex-prisoner last year who told me she put on about 5 stone whilst inside. As a woman, the thought of having very little control over my weight or my skin almost immediately fills me with dread. It might seem trivial, but in a mentally-damaging environment like prison, these issues are only heightened.
It’s one of the reasons why, unlike in men’s institutions, women in UK prisons are allowed to wear their own clothes. A far cry from Orange is the New Black’s signature overalls, women haven’t been required to wear prison-issue clothing since 1971 because the Ministry of Justice believed a uniform could have a negative impact of self esteem. If only they recognised poor nutrition as having a similar impact.
Six months into the project and far wiser on the subject than when I first started (my friends are continually fascinated by my newfound prison knowledge - usually shared enthusiastically over pints with bemused strangers), my campaign has morphed into much more than just a pledge for extra fruit and veg. Nowadays it feels like a fight for the emotional wellbeing of a group of very vulnerable individuals.
It’s these individuals who I’ve taken time to speak to over the last few months, with the majority essentially coming back to the same conclusion about prison diet - that the food served to them inside lets them know how much the system values them. When you are dealing with people who are likely to be struggling with their own self-worth, what does a child-size sugary breakfast pack or an overcooked, cold dinner do but deteriorate this further?
Simon served 16 years and one day in prison. I lost count when he told me the number of prisons he resided in during that time - everywhere from Wandsworth to North Sea Camp. You’d be pushed to meet anyone more equipped than him to talk about food inside and the emotional impact it can have.
‘Many of us, including myself, went into prison with a very unhealthy lifestyle’ explains Simon, “But there comes a point when you want to evolve as a person. Society evolves, but when it comes to food you’re just eating the same old stuff. So as you get healthier and you start to want to change your life, food is the one thing that’s really difficult to change.”
Eating - and eating well - is an emotional necessity as well as a physical one. Think about the feeling a big bowl of comforting pasta gives you after a shit day at work. Or how every important occasion is essentially centred around the food served - Christmas lunch, Easter lamb, slices of homemade birthday cake or bank holiday bacon sandwiches. I get far more emotional comfort and enjoyment from a roast chicken dinner on a sleepy Sunday night than any person could give me (and I’m sure Nigella would concur).
A lot of what is so great about all these food-focused occasions is the opportunity to share food with other people - something rare in most prisons. Although it seems an outdated belief that it’s women - rather than men - who care the most about food, family, cooking and the kitchen, history would tell us otherwise. If you take away the opportunity to cook and share a meal together in a traditional way, arguably it’s women who are going to end up feeling the effects more than most.
Simon knows all too well the power communal dining can potentially have whilst incarcerated. He spent part of his sentence in HMP Grendon, a forward-thinking therapeutic prison where the food was cooked on the wing by the prisoners and enjoyed together. It was the first time in his whole sentence he had the facilities to eat communally. In the majority of prisons, eating in your cell is the absolute norm.
‘Quite often if your doors are left open when you’re eating then you might eat with your mates' explains Simon, 'One would sit on the bed, one on a chair and the third person would probably sit on the toilet. It sounds disgusting but if you wanted to eat with two of your mates, that’s what you’d do. In prison, you get used to this kind of low level of humanity.’
There are no facts or figures out there to prove that eating your dinner on your toilet seat has a bad effect on your mental health and self esteem. But I think we can assume it’s not going to have a good one
Similarly, there are also no facts and figures out there to demonstrate the effect prison food can have on those in more extreme circumstances.I spent some time chatting to a woman who served a short sentence of 7 weeks, but also happened to be lactose-intolerant and 6 months pregnant at the time - a living nightmare for any young woman. She spent the majority of her sentence chasing up staff members for the required extra calories pregnant women are entitled to in prison and some form of milk substitute. Four and a half weeks into her sentence and she still hadn’t received either.
'Your punishment is to have your freedom taken away from you - not to be starved or have your health compromised' she said. According to her, a fellow pregnant inmate cried herself to sleep every night because she was so hungry.
The daily tales of frustration and desperation from over the other side of the wall seem to continue and so does my campaign. It’s easy to be judgemental. The negatives stories I’ve been told about prison food far outweigh the positive - it’s hard for me to be objective when those stories involve women who are the same age as me, feel the same way about food as I do and crave the same simple things.
However it’s important not to forget that prison kitchens are full of talented staff functioning under immense pressure and under-funding. The idea of a Jamie’s School Dinners-esque transformation is probably far from their agenda and I can’t really blame them.
But if I was to ask the same staff whether they’d benefit from a calmer, more civil prison environment that focused on stabilising the mental health and often unpredictable emotions of a vulnerable group of people, their answer would probably be yes. So it’s time we stopped ignoring diet as part of that. If school kids behave better without E numbers and patients grow stronger with freshly cooked meals, then why can’t the same apply to prisoners? I may have stumbled into prison reform by total accident, but I’ve come too far now to not at least try and find out why.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.