World Hunger - General
by: Jerry Price - Oct 1, 2006 - comments: 2
- 852 million people across the world are hungry, up from 842 million a year ago.
- Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes—one child every five seconds.
- In essence, hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food.
- Hunger manifests itself in many ways other than starvation and famine. Most poor people who battle hunger deal with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness.
- Countries in which a large portion of the population battles hunger daily are usually poor and often lack the social safety nets we enjoy, such as soup kitchens, food stamps, and job training programs. When a family that lives in a poor country cannot grow enough food or earn enough money to buy food, there is nowhere to turn for help.
- In the developing world, more than 1.2 billion people currently live below the international poverty line, earning less than $1 per day.
- Among this group of poor people, many have problems obtaining adequate, nutritious food for themselves and their families. As a result, 815 million people in the developing world are undernourished. They consume less than the minimum amount of calories essential for sound health and growth.
- Undernourishment negatively affects people’s health, productivity, sense of hope and overall well-being. A lack of food can stunt growth, slow thinking, sap energy, hinder fetal development and contribute to mental retardation.
- Economically, the constant securing of food consumes valuable time and energy of poor people, allowing less time for work and earning income.
Excerpted from Hunger Facts: International, (Bread for the World) [Accessed March 28, 2006]
Hunger and malnutrition are the underlying cause of more than half of all child deaths, killing nearly 6 million children each year—a figure that is roughly equivalent to the entire preschool population of Japan. Relatively few of these children die of starvation. The vast majority are killed by neonatal disorders and a handful of treatable infectious diseases, including diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria and measles … One sure way to reduce child mortality would be to make further improvements in child nutrition. Reducing the prevalence of underweight by another five percentage points could reduce child mortality by about 30 percent. Analysis of recent trends confirms that child mortality has fallen fastest in the countries that are making the most rapid progress in reducing hunger.
The State of Food Insecurity in the World—2005 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) [Accessed March 28, 2006]
“The world will have 100 million extra hungry people by 2015, scientists say … Despite great improvements in food availability in the 1960s and 1970s, these trends are reversing in many developing countries, they say.
“The United Nations’ goal of halving hunger by 2015 looks unattainable without new technologies and greater financial investment, they add.
“Ten pre-school children die every minute from malnutrition and this number has not changed since the early 1980s despite global promises.”
‘Millions More Starving’ by 2015 (BBC News), February 17, 2006
Further Learning
Learn more about: Citizenship, Hunger/Homelessness
2 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Aug 5th, 2008, at 2:20pm, John Allen Land Jr. wrote:
After reading this article, it seems that there is not a solution that will end this problem. This troubles me in a big way. I just cannot free my mind of the young children that die every day from hunger and famine related causes. I praise any organization that reduces the number of casualties. I also praise any celebrity who can use their influence to organize events to recduce the problem. I plan to do my part, as small as it may be. God bless those who help in any small way. It seems to me that if every one gave one dollar, it could go a long way to help end world hunger.
God Bless
John Allen Land Jr.
Houston, TX
2 On Nov 6th, 2008, at 5:13pm, Ana wrote:
it’s sad to know about this problem. Because even though there are millions of people dying it is worse to know that there is enough food in the world to feed everyone. So why does hunger exist? It’s a sad fact.