Statistics
1293 words by jenniferpellittieri
Problem: Hunger
Where does starvation exist in the world today? Starvation is not just a problem in New Orleans, not only in Louisiana, not only in the United States, but starvation is a worldwide problem. The causes of starvation are numerous and complex, but poverty is the first and foremost leading cause of starvation. Statistics about hunger are shocking! In the United States, 3.9 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. The range of hunger go from frequently skipping meals or eating too little, to the extreme of sometimes going without food for days. 10.8 million people, including 606 thousand children live in these 3.9% homes. U.S. households that are at risk of hunger are 7.1 percent of the U.S. households. These households have lower quality diets and must seek emergency food because they cannot afford food. 24.4 million people, including 11.8 million children live in these homes. These numbers are quite shocking since America is one of the most obese nations in the world. All of the advertisements stress “biggie size” Get a bigger portion for only a few cents more.
In Asian, African, and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in absolute poverty—starving. Every year, 15 million children die of hunger. The numbers breakdown to one in twelve people worldwide is malnourished. This number includes 160 million children under the age of 5. The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world’s hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world.
Nearly one in four people struggle to live off of $1 or less per day. 1.3 billion people struggle to survive on $2 per day. This struggle to survive exists in a world with 358 billionaires…..
Infant mortality rate is linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The United States ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality. African-American infants die at nearly twice the rate of white infants. One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the United States goes to bed hungry every night. Every 3.6 seconds, someone dies of hunger. Those that do not die just continue to starve. Of 800 million people suffering from hunger, about 100 times as many die from it each year.
Many programs have been implemented to assist the starving people. The Food Stamp program was implemented, State level and Federal level funding, but is there enough food, programs, and volunteers to feed all of these hungry people. What does it mean to be food insecure?
Although poverty is by far the number one cause of starvation, many other reasons exist. AIDS is a significant cause of hunger. In Africa, the most productive individuals within the society are victims of AIDS. Fewer productive people leads to fewer productive people to work the jobs which involve food production. Weather plays a major role in the prevalence of starvation. Drought leads to non-usable land and crops. Subsequently famine exists. Floods destroy crops, therefore people starve just like the drought victims. Military conflicts lead to starvation. Funds are diverted from social and economic development and focused and spent on funding the conflict instead of feeding the people. Did you know that for the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day of 5 years.
These are the areas of the world that are suffering the highest level of malnutrition and hunger. A major problem in the relief effort is that the general population vaguely hears about the hunger problem, but they really do not know about the current hunger crisis. Newspapers, broadcast companies, television, and new organizations are not giving enough attention to the global hunger situation. I have provided numerous shocking statistics, now it is time for everyone to get individually involved. We now know where and why people are starving. Every day on my way to school I see at least one or two people holding us signs saying that they will work for food or shaking cans for change in order to buy some survival food. The people on the street are only the brave souls that put themselves out there to ask for food. There are many more people that are either too embarrassed, to proud, to sick, weak or unable to stand on a street corner and ask for food. We pass these people by and go on with our business allowing them to starve to death. Some of these people have begged on these corners for years while others have just lost their job and probably their home also, but are to proud to stand on the corner. Only a few cents a day from each person would feed these unfortunate people. We know the cruel statistics of the number of people starving, struggling, and dying from starvation. We may not be able to help every one of these people obviously, and we may not be able to solve this world crisis alone, but we can face the fact that people we pass on the street everyday are starving. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. We must do our part to eliminate world hunger”. My problem for this class, the need for food to feed these hungry people, does just this. I want to educate and make Xavier students aware of the food crisis. I want them to know that by supporting this food drive will make a difference. What may seem as a small difference is really huge. We at Xavier will be acknowledging the existence of hunger and individually trying to help eliminate the hunger problem of the world by beginning in our backyard.
References:
“Food Insecurity and Hunger.” SNAP-Ed Connection. United States Department of Agiculture. http://www.snap.nal.usda.gov.
“The Current Status of World Hunger.” Articlesbase. http://www.articlesbase.com.
“The World Hunger Problem: Facts, figures, and statistics.” An End to World Hunger: hope for the future. http://www.library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.html.
Vuk, Vedran. “Hungry for the Truth on Hunger.” Lewrockwell. http://www.lewrockwell.com.