The number of UK households cutting back on food or missing meals has shot up by more than half in three months, affecting one in seven homes as price rises cut into nutrition for the country’s poorest, according to research by YouGov.

About 7.3mn adults were living in households that were forced to reduce their food purchases in April or had missed meals despite being hungry — a 57 per cent rise from January, research for the Food Foundation, a charity, found.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot, director of the Institute of Health Equity at University College London, said the figures indicated that one in seven households was “food insecure”. “These figures?.?.?.?are all the more chilling because the problem is soluble, but far from being solved, it is getting worse,” he said.