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LiveScience.com livescience Staff
livescience.com – Wed Sep 16, 3:01 pm ET
Despite a record level of people suffering from hunger, food aid is at a 20-year low due to the poor global economy, United Nations officials said today. The result: More than 1 billion people across the world will face hunger this year.
"For the world's most vulnerable, the perfect storm is hitting with a vengeance," said U.N. World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran. So far this year, the agency has received less than half of the $6.7 billion it needs to feed 108 million people in 74 countries, Sheeran said.
While we're all familiar with the stomach grumblings and the pangs that come with a skipped or late meal, most people, especially in the developed world, know little about the more critical problems that prolonged hunger can cause.
What hunger does
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Who is hungry
While enough food exists to feed the world's entire population, the WFP estimates that the number of hungry in the world tops 1 billion, or about one in every six people - more than the populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union combined.
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Of the total amount of hungry people in the world, half are in Asia and the Pacific and one quarter are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the WFP. Sixty-five percent live in just six countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
The statistics (from the WFP) on those facing the results of hunger can be stark:
An estimated 146 million children in developing countries are underweight.
Every six seconds a child dies because of hunger and related causes.
More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women.
Trends in hunger
While aid programs made inroads in combating hunger at the end of the 20th century, rising food prices have been negating those efforts, causing the number of hungry to rise again everywhere except in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The rising cost of food caused the number of hungry to jump by 75 million people in 2007 and 40 million people in 2008.
War, climate change, unshakeable poverty, poor farming practices, and over-exploitation of farming resources also contribute to the persistence of hunger, experts say.
Ways to prevent malnutrition include: improvement of water supplies, sanitation and hygiene; health education; improved access to healthy food for the poor; and insurance that industrialization and agricultural advancements don't contribute to the problem, according to the World Health Organization.
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