In my first post, I gave a brief introduction on hunger and also talked about its causes. This post is going to contain information about the effects that hunger has on the people that are suffering from it.
With people dealing with starvation, it is really sad to see that the issue itself can lead to life-threatening damages. Clare Ulrich argues that “Five to six million preschool children die each year from hunger and malnutrition and poverty. Further, poverty and hunger prevent 114 million children from doing something many Westerners take for granted — completing primary school” (16). By looking at the statistics alone, that is actually a lot of innocent children who could have had a chance of living and experiencing what other children are involved with right now such as playing a sport or even attending schools. On the other end, Hilal Elver points out that “According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), almost 1 billion people suffer from chronic hunger and almost 2 billion are under-or-over nourished” (Guardian News). This is heartbreaking because most of the time, we do not realize that some of the people around the world are starving for food. Children suffer mainly by lacking nutrition, which results in having 5 million die each year (Elver, 1). Not only children, but pregnant mothers tend to be affected by malnutrition, which causes pregnant mothers to bear babies who are suffering from low-birth-weight and are weak from malnutrition (Anderson, 24). Malnutrition is not healthy because it can cause severe difficulties in both the mother and the baby. The baby might be at the point of dying because he or she might lack enough strength and weight to live.
Along the same lines of malnutrition, it can also come from having less food that would not satisfy the good health and condition of a person. Jennifer Clapp claims that “Hunger remains a serious global problem. Over 840 million people in the world are chronically undernourished, but due to the manner in which hunger is measured, this figure may underestimate the true scale of the problem” (2). Clapp is stating that hunger is a huge problem in our world and not all of the people have access to having a good meal in order for them to be in a healthy condition. Going further into the topic of undernourishment, Josette Sheeran agrees that hunger is an obstacle by stating “Nearly two-thirds of all undernourished people in the world live in Asia and the Pacific, precisely in the regions where the transformative seeds, fertilizers, pesticide, and irrigation technologies of the Green Revolution contributed to some of the largest gains in farm yields” (Page 6). In making this comment, Sheeran reports that regions like Asia and the Pacific are common for having the dietary deficiency as a problem because of the type of area they live in. According to Josette Sheeran, she adds that “Over the course of a troubled history, Haiti has suffered more blows than most, from the food price riots that toppled the government in late 2008 to frequent natural disasters. But far too many others in countries across Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and beyond now hover just one earthquake, cyclone, conflict, or drought away from widespread hunger and acute malnutrition” (3). Sheeran is implying that the problem of hunger itself may come from natural disasters that cause malnutrition.
Sources:
Ulrich, Clare. “Enlightened Policies Can Benefit The Poor And Hungry.” Human Ecology 33.2 (2005): 16. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 4 Mar. 2016.
Elver, Hilal. “Why are there still so many hungry people in the world?.” Guardian News 19 Feb 2015. Print.
Pinstrup-Andersen, Per. “Feeding The World In The New Millennium.” Environment 43.6 (2001): 22. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 4 Mar. 2016.
Clapp, Jennifer. “World Hunger And The Global Economy: Strong Linkages, Weak Action.” Journal Of International Affairs 67.2 (2014): 1. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 4 Mar. 2016.
Sheeran, Josette. “How To End Hunger.” Washington Quarterly 33.2 (2010): 3. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 4 Mar. 2016.
Romonah Kond 2016 