Up to 828 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat. One in 10 people globally suffer from chronic hunger. What are the consequences of hunger and where is the situation the worst?
Depending on the consequences and the region, there are different types of hunger:
Acute hunger describes malnutrition over a definable period of time. It is the most extreme form of hunger and often appears in connection with crises, such as droughts, floods, wars and natural disasters. According to the status at the end of 2022, Afghanistan, Somalia and Niger were among the countries whose populations suffered most severely from acute hunger globally.
Chronic hunger refers to a state of permanent malnutrition. The body takes in less food than it needs. Although acute hunger crises are most commonly reported, chronic hunger is the most widespread globally. It usually occurs in relation to poverty. Chronically hungry people usually don’t have enough money for a healthy diet, clean water or health care.
Hidden hunger is a form of chronic hunger. Due to iron deficiency and an unbalanced diet, important nutrients such as iron, iodine, zinc or vitamin A are missing. The consequences of hidden hunger are not necessarily visible at first sight, but in the long term the nutrient deficiency leads to serious diseases. Children in particular cannot develop properly mentally and physically. Hidden hunger not only harms people individually, but can reduce overall development in the affected regions because it decreases the people’s performance capability and their health.
Children are the most visible victims of undernutrition. 45% of all child deaths come from poor nutrition. The risk of dying from malnutrition is high. Every year, about 30-40 million people die of hunger or its immediate consequences. Children under the age of five are often affected.
The majority of the world’s hungry people live in lower-middle-income regions, in the developing world, where a weak government, extreme poverty, inequality and the lack of access to nutritious food is a big problem.
South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are the most severely affected by severe malnutrition globally, and also suffer from poverty and climate crises.
Heat waves and droughts affect Africa, Asia and Europe. West Africa and Pakistan struggle with catastrophic floods. Both influence and decrease the very needed harvests.
Welthungerhilfe.de (translated: world-hunger-help), a German organization which helps to reduce hunger internationally and worldwide, writes in one of their articles:
“People in Africa are paying the highest price. Here, more than 100 million people will experience droughts, floods and extreme heat waves as a result of climate change by the end of the decade.” […]
Regions like Central- and South America struggle a lot as well. During my research I came across an article about Haiti. The country has always been poor, but was always able to feed itself. After the 1990s, it became steadily more difficult to access nutrition. In the 2000s, a series of disasters followed, such as the 2010 earthquake, hurricane Matthew in 2016 and the Southern earthquake of 2021. Today, half of the Haitian population are in a food crisis.
People in Peru and Bolivia are also struggling. Although the national economies of both countries have grown steadily in recent years and they are now both categorized as “(low) middle income countries,” small farmers and the indigenous population in particular are still doing poorly, both financially and in terms of food. They suffer from malnutrition and have no secure access to water, electricity or basic sanitation.
Even in developed countries hunger and malnutrition is an ongoing issue.
The National Geographic Magazine reports about hunger in the U.S.
One-sixth of Americans don’t have enough food to eat. “Urban neighborhoods with pervasive unemployment and poverty are home to the hungriest. The South Bronx has the highest rate of food insecurity in the country, 37 percent, compared with 16.6 for New York City as a whole” , writes the magazin it its campaign “The New Face of Hunger”. If you want to read the full article click here.
For 2023 and the future, I would like to see more efficient ways to reduce hunger around the world and more commitment and political support to solve the hunger issues.
Discussion questions:
- What is one way to solve hunger issues globally?
- Why is hunger a social problem?
Sources:
https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/the-hunger-crisis/world-hunger-facts/what-is-hunger/
https://www.welthungerhilfe.de/informieren/laender/bolivien
https://www.wfp.org/stories/comment-there-no-time-waste-responding-rising-hunger-haiti
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/hunger/
https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/the-hunger-crisis/world-hunger-facts/who-does-hunger-affect/
4 Comments
Max W · January 14, 2023 at 11:45 pm
I think solving hunger issues globally is an incredibly difficult task, and my solution to it would be to give people the things that they need first, rather than just donating food to them. Giving people clean water, electricity, and basic sanitation would help many out of poverty, which is the leading cause of malnutrition. Hunger is a social problem because once you start down that path, the way back up is much harder, and society punishes you for having food insecurities. Society needs to work together to help each other out, but social injustice constantly denies people what they need to survive, and this is one of the biggest societal problems.
Ali S · January 18, 2023 at 2:36 am
“What is one way to solve hunger issues globally?”
I believe solving global hunger requires an economic revival similar to Europe’s reconstruction post World War 2. World powers need to chip in and help build the world up in a sustainable fashion. It’ll be expensive, but it will also create jobs, prevent climate related food shortages, and put civilians on the ladder of economic opportunity. World hunger is driven from many issues, one of the biggest being an inability to grow crops. Take Syria for example, where a lack of water for irrigation has caused catastrophic famines. If the rest of the developed world helped Syria develop proper irrigation methods this would not be a problem (along with other interventions obviously, but the point still stands). As you mentioned in your blog, Haiti is another example of abject poverty, and extreme hunger. However, Haiti suffers from recurrent natural disasters. If it’s nearby neighbor, the United States helped build it back in a process similar to how China’s Belts and Roads Initiative (a Chinese economic plan that heavily invests in building up the infrastructure of other nations) builds back the rest of the (influential) world, perhaps the 2.4 million children in Haiti wouldn’t go hungry for another night. While obviously China’s plan only helps countries that China cares about, and is not at all for humanitarian purposes, it clearly shows that foreign countries investing in less developed ones can turn back even the extreme droughts, heat waves, and other issues you mentioned.
Lucas L · January 19, 2023 at 3:20 am
What is one way to solve hunger issues globally?
Why is hunger a social problem?
I learned a lot from your blog post. One way to solve hunger issues globally is to invests in farm holders in places that have extreme poverty and hunger. Because most of the food sources were imported from outside, but once the importation is blocked, people have no food, so the local farms really help. So I think by investing more money for the local farmers in their country can reduce the level of hunger. Hunger is a serious social problem, imagine not having enough food, from our own perspectives, we will die and suffer. Looking wider, not having food will cause health issues, and when people have health issues, they can’t work, they don’t have energy to work, to learn, or to do anything! Food is simply basic human needs. From the article, hungers mainly happened in South Asia and South Africa, then we countries, as a team gather everyone to donate, and invest money in small farm holders, then there could probably be a huge difference.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading your post, before I didn’t even know that there are different types of hunger (level), such as hidden hunger, acute hunger and chronic hunger. You put in efforts in research and planning, well done!!!
Sarah H · January 19, 2023 at 3:59 pm
Hunger is a social problem because it is an issue that every person has to deal with, but at different levels. We’ve all felt hungry at some point in our lives. Many of us are fortunate enough to be able to get food whenever we want, while there are so many others who don’t have those resources and have been starving for months or much longer. I think our society sometimes forgets how fortunate we are to have the basic resources to get food and clean water. People constantly throw out perfectly good food they don’t want anymore, while others would happily eat it. Hunger isn’t a problem that can be solved just by feeding people – I think it’s more complex than that (especially when you consider how much food is wasted every day). I think that there isn’t one specific way to solve hunger issues globally. However, I think that there are steps that we can take to slowly but surely help those who are hungry. One of the things that my family and I do is make meals to give to those who need it. When we make our dinner, we set aside portions to donate. We bring them to a local church that collects meals and distributes them to people who need it. If everyone who could spare food donated their extras, then we could help feed a community. this is a short term solution, but it would allow people to get the food they need right away.
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