Background on Hunger

The world produces more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but still nearly 1 billion people around the world are chronically hungry. Hunger is the greatest risk to health worldwide, it kills more people than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

What causes hunger?

• Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The World Bank estimates that 1.4 billion (one in four) people in developing countries live on $1.25 a day or less.
• Natural disasters like floods, tropical storms and long periods of drought wipe out crops and cause severe food shortages. The Ethiopian government has said that because of a lack of rain this year, over 75,000 children are now severely malnourished.
• War displaces hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, leaving many of them without access to adequate food supplies. In war, food can also be used as a weapon - soldiers often seize or destroy food and local livestock.
• Agriculture infrastructure is essential to maintaining food supplies. The world produces enough food to feed everyone, but many developing countries lack the basic tools and supplies needed to grow and transport their crops.
• Climate change is an added challenge for people in developing countries. Rising temperatures are changing the migration patterns of animal species, affecting crops and causing more droughts.

Malnutrition

Even if people have enough to eat, they can still become malnourished. This happens when the food they eat does not have enough of the vitamins and minerals their body needs. A third of the people in developing countries are affected by vitamin and mineral deficiencies (a shortage of substances necessary to health), and iron, vitamin A and zinc deficiencies are ranked among the World Health Organization's top 10 leading causes of death through disease in developing countries.

• Not enough vitamin A can cause blindness and retardation in children, and reduce the body's ability to fight disease. Between 100 and 140 million children are vitamin A deficient.
• A lack of iron can cause anemia, a blood disorder that occurs when the level of healthy red blood cells in the body becomes too low. Over 30% of the world’s population is anemic, mainly due to iron deficiency.
• Iodine deficiency in mothers often affects their children. During pregnancy, it may result in stillbirths and mental retardation. Fifty million people have some degree of mental impairment caused by a lack of iodine in their diet.

Hunger in the U.S.

Hunger in the U.S. is an issue of food insecurity rather than food deficiency. Food insecurity is when a family does not have regular access to food because of a lack of money or other resources. In the U.S., 49 million people live in households considered food insecure - meaning they often skip meals or eat too little.

Another way to measure hunger in the U.S. is to look at the number of people on food stamps. Food stamps are issued to people who are entitled to receive welfare benefits. They are given in place of money to purchase food. In 2007, an average of 26.5 million people used food stamps each month.

The effects of hunger in the U.S. are not as severe as they are in other parts of the world like Africa and Asia, but they still pose significant health risks, especially for children. Research shows that preschool and school-aged children suffering from severe hunger have higher levels of chronic illness, anxiety and depression than children with no hunger.

Sources:
World Food Program
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
World Health Organization