The Bad Side of Food
As a growing boy, it is a struggle to make it through the day without eating every hour. Eating not only fills my belly, but it also keeps me focused in class. When I wake up, I eat. The first hour, I try to drink a protein shake to keep me awake. That usually carries me to lunch, where I eat. Then it is the hardest stretch of my day. After lunch, to the end of school, I am mostly dead in class. Luckily, the bell rings and I head home. You guessed it, once I get home I eat. This time I don’t stop. I keep on munching on those pretzels crisps from Costco, the bag is a bottomless pit. It is an endless pit of munching. Not one time during my usual day, did I stop and think, what it would be like to have no access to food.
In 2016, “The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 815 million people of the 7.6 billion people in the world, or one in ten, were suffering from chronic undernourishment” (www.worldhunger.org). I looked into the word “undernourishment” and found it quite interesting. On a website called, www.thefreedictionary.com, it describes undernourishment as, “To provide with insufficient quantity or quality of nourishment to sustain proper health and growth”. Before I explain this, it is important to also know what the word nourishment is. It is not just food, it is actually anything that is “necessary for growth, health, and good condition” (en.oxforddictionaries.com).
With all the definitions we can now come with a conclusion. There are two main parts to undernourishment. First, we have the failure to provide nourishment. This can take many different legs. Second, because of this human’s and children’s bodies don’t have enough energy to be healthy and grow. All of this all goes back to not having food in the first place.
When thinking about hunger, the first thing that comes to mind is the lack of food. When we think of families that are below the poverty line, they have nothing to eat because of their financial status. Well in reality that is not what it all comes down to. It comes down to the shortages of food in a certain area. This usually occurs in 3rd world countries because they aren’t as developed as a country, for say America. In a toll, on www.mercycorps.org, it says that” Nearly all the world’s hungry — — 98 percent — — live in developing regions”. This puts them behind in areas of markets, infrastructure, and even food sources, which all leads up to how they get food. Also, in some areas, they can experience extreme weather conditions such as flooding and droughts, sometimes causing them to go days without water. Because these countries are undeveloped, getting food for who needs it, is undependable.
When food doesn’t reach, and younger children don’t eat, it creates lifelong problems. One of the most renown researches, that was done by Mercy Corps, is called “The Cycle of Hunger”.
“The Cycle of Hunger.” Mercy Corps, 11 Oct. 2018.
As you can see the cycle all starts with children not getting the proper nutrition, that ends up stunting their growth, physically and mentally. In their prime learning age, their youth, many of these kids experience “chronic health problems” that keep them from learning, from not getting the nutrition they need when they were babies (Mercy Corps). Chronic health problems are not the only issue at this age. On a recent study, it says that “66 million primary school-aged children attend classes hungry across the developing world, 23 million whom live in Africa, which greatly impacts their ability to learn” (World Food Programme [WFP], 2012). Education is a basic need that children need, and to not be able to learn properly because of food, is an issue. Education is something children need to live in the world today, as an adult. If we look at the cycle, education impacts hungry kids when they grow up. The “Lack of education limits the ability to work” as an adult (Mercy Corps). For people below the poverty line, it is crucial that they are educated. If they aren’t, they won’t be able to feed their own families. With the lack of education, in a 3rd world country, it is very hard to find work that can feed your whole family. The last category Mercy Corps has is family. They say that during pregnancy if you have poor health, it “leads to an undernourished child” (Mercy Corps). This whole process has a domino effect starting with poor nutrition as a child. The root of this cycle, the one thing that they need that these humans don’t have, is food. This causes children to develop a lot slower and less physically and mentally advanced than a regular suburban kid.
When looking for food all the time to stay alive, this can have many people sidetracked from other important things. In a recent toll, it says that “Between 60 and 80 percent of their income” is spent on food (Mercy Corps). This allows for all the families to lose sight of needs other than food. They lose sight of things such as sending their children to school, paying for suitable living conditions, and even sometimes getting a job.
While doing some research, I found an intriguing story about this family in Yemen that highlights the horrible effects of hunger. The family lives in Yemen during the 3-year war. This 3-year war “has left millions of people on the edge of famine” (www.apnews.com). The mother weighs 84 pounds, pregnant. She has been starving herself, in order to feed all of her children. 28.97% of people in Yemen “rely completely on food aid or else they would starve” (www.apnews.com). In the dry deserts and rugged mountains of Yemen, only “2 to 4 percent of the land is cultivated”, meaning all of their “food and supplies must be imported” (www.apnews.com). Umm Mizrah, the mother of the family, has a 17-month baby that weighs 12.8 pounds. As put in the article, that’s “around half the normal weight for his age”. The doctors told that family that the baby is suffering from “severe acute malnutrition”, “the most dire stage of hunger” (www.apnews.com). This specific story, done by www.apnews.com shows what world hunger is. It mentions real people who struggle to find a need that we have as a luxury. We don’t realize until we hear about these stories that make us shrivel down to our spine. But in reality, there are still millions of people out there in our world, starving.
The problem is at our hands. World hunger can be solved, but it will take a lot of work. Groups like Mercy Corps strive to do this every day. In my next essay, I will be exploring what is being done to stop World Hunger.
Sources:
“What We’re Doing to Help End Global Hunger.” Mercy Corps, 11 Oct. 2018, www.mercycorps.org/articles/what-were-doing-help-end-global-hunger.
Michael, Maggie. “One Meal a Day: Yemeni Mothers Try to Feed Their Families.” AP News, Associated Press, 3 May 2018, www.apnews.com/c1243e62f8c940a1bbed11311d53a757.
“Undernourishment.” The Free Dictionary, Farlex, www.thefreedictionary.com/undernourishment.
“World Child Hunger Facts — World Hunger Education.” World Hunger News, www.worldhunger.org/world-child-hunger-facts/.
