Over 90% of low-income households with children in Japan face food insecurity as rising prices continue to strain finances, according to a survey by nongovernmental organization Save the Children Japan.

The NGO surveyed a total of 7,856 households in Japan ¡ª with over 14,000 children ¡ª in June. Most households had just one parent and had applied for food assistance from the organization.

¡°Fundamentally, every child should be guaranteed the right to live, grow, and be safe,¡± Kotone Tanaka, an assistant professor at Kanagawa University of Human Services, wrote in the report. ¡°Yet the reality that some face uncertainty about their daily meals threatens those basic rights and makes it urgent to implement swift support measures, such as public food assistance or direct cash benefits for living expenses.¡±

In the survey, 88.9% of respondents said they felt food insecurity had become worse for children compared with last year. Around 30% said they had to reduce the amount of food they put on the table for financial reasons.

Around 9% of respondents said they try to distract children from hunger by making them drink more water, which shows how grave the situation is in some households.

Some 83.4% of respondents said they felt that the food shortage has had a negative impact on their children¡¯s health and development. Among them, nearly 40% said their children felt sick easily, while a similar share said their children tended to be skinny. Over 35% said their children could not concentrate and were lethargic due to hunger.

In more severe cases, 8.2% said their children had trouble sleeping due to hunger pangs.

The high price of rice has also contributed to the current situation.

Just under half of the respondents said that aside from school lunches, their child barely ate any rice. Around 75% of respondents said they have been consuming less rice compared with last year.

Nearly 95% of those surveyed were financially strained single-parent households. Over 97% of respondents were women in their 30s or 40s.

The average monthly food budget for a two-person household was ?32,000 ($218) and their total monthly expenditures amounted to ?134,000. For three-person households, the average monthly budget for food was ?41,000, while their total monthly expenditure was around ?157,000.

¡°We strongly felt through this survey that the situation has grown more serious than it was before,¡± the NGO said. ¡°The results of this survey call on each of us ¡ª and on the Japanese government ¡ª to consider what must truly be done to eliminate child poverty.¡±

The group urges the government to increase subsidies given to financially strained households for things such as school lunches, school supplies and utilities fees.