World News

Hunger Facts: International

World Hunger and Poverty: How They Fit Together

• 854 million people across the world are hungry, up from 852 million a year ago. ³

• Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds. ¹²

• In essence, hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food. ¹
  
  
• Hunger manifests itself in many ways other than starvation and famine. Most poor people who battle hunger deal with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness. ¹
  

   

• Countries in which a large portion of the population battles hunger daily are usually poor and often lack the social safety nets we enjoy, such as soup kitchens, food stamps, and job training programs. When a family that lives in a poor country cannot grow enough food or earn enough money to buy food, there is nowhere to turn for help. ¹

Facts and Figures on Population

• Today our world houses 6.55 billion people. ²
  

   

• The United States is a part of the developed or industrialized world, which consists of about 57 countries with a combined population of about 1 billion, less than one sixth of the world’s population.  ⁴

   

• In contrast, approximately 5.1 billion people live in the developing world. This world is made up of about 125 low and middle-income countries in which people generally have a lower standard of living with access to fewer goods and services than people in high-income countries. ⁴

   

• The remaining 0.4 billion live in countries in transition, which include the Baltic states, eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. ⁴

Facts and Figures on Hunger and Poverty

• In 2004, almost 1 billion people lived below the international poverty line, earning less than $1 per day. ⁹

   

• Among this group of poor people, many have problems obtaining adequate, nutritious food for themselves and their families. As a result, 820 million people in the developing world are undernourished. They consume less than the minimum amount of calories essential for sound health and growth. ³

   

• Undernourishment negatively affects people’s health, productivity, sense of hope and overall well-being. A lack of food can stunt growth, slow thinking, sap energy, hinder fetal development and contribute to mental retardation. ¹

   

• Economically, the constant securing of food consumes valuable time and energy of poor people, allowing less time for work and earning income. ¹
  
• Socially, the lack of food erodes relationships and feeds shame so that those most in need of support are often least able to call on it. ¹
  
  
• Go to the World Food Programme website and click on either "Counting the Hungry" or "Interactive Hunger Map" for presentations on hunger and poverty around the world.
   

World Hunger Facts 2008

World Hunger Education Service

Hunger is a term which has three meanings (Oxford English Dictionary 1971)

• the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite. Also the exhausted condition caused by want of food

• the want or scarcity of food in a country

• a strong desire or craving

World hunger refers to the second definition, aggregated to the world level. The related technical term (in this case operationalized in medicine)  is malnutrition.¹ 

Malnutrition is a general term that indicates a lack of some or all nutritional elements necessary for human health (Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia).

There are two basic types of malnutrition. The first and most important is protein-energy malnutrition--the lack of enough protein (from meat and other sources) and food that provides energy (measured in calories) which all of the basic food groups provide. This is the type of malnutrition that is referred to when world hunger is discussed.  The second type of malnutrition, also very important, is micronutrient (vitamin and mineral) deficiency. This is not the type of malnutrition that is referred to when world hunger is discussed, though it is certainly very important. 

[Recently there has also been a move to include obesity as a third form of malnutrition. Considering obesity as malnutrition expands the previous usual meaning of the term which referred to poor nutrition due to lack of food inputs.² It is poor nutrition, but it is certainly not typically due to a lack of calories, but rather too many (although poor food choices, often due to poverty, are part of the problem). Obesity will not be considered here, although obesity is certainly a health problem and is increasingly considered as a type of malnutrition.]

Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) is the most lethal form of malnutrition/hunger. It is basically a lack of calories and protein. Food is converted into energy by humans, and the energy contained in food is measured by calories.  Protein is necessary for key body functions including provision of essential amino acids and  development and maintenance of muscles.

No one really knows how many people are malnourished. The statistic most frequently cited is that of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which measures 'undernutrition'. The most recent estimate (2006) of the FAO says that 854 million people worldwide are undernourished. This is 12.6 percent of the estimated world population of 6.6 billion. Most of the undernourished--820 million--are in developing countries.  The FAO estimate is based on statistical aggregates.  It looks at a country's income level and income distribution and uses this information to estimate how many people receive such a low level of income that they are malnourished.  It is   not an estimate based on seeing to what extent actual people are malnourished and projecting from there (as would be done by survey sampling). [It has been argued that the FAO approach is not sufficient to give accurate estimates of malnutrition (Poverty and Undernutrition  p. 298 by Peter Svedberg).]

Undernutrition is a relative new concept, but is increasingly used.  It should be taken as basically equivalent to malnutrition.  (It should be said as an aside, that the idea of undernourishment,  its relationship to malnutrition, and the reasons for its emergence as a concept is not clear to Hunger Notes.)

Children are the most visible victims of undernutrition.  Children who are poorly nourished suffer up to 160 days of illness each year. Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year--five million deaths.  Undernutrition magnifies the effect of every disease, including measles and malaria. The estimated proportions of deaths in which undernutrition is an underlying cause are roughly similar for diarrhea (61%), malaria (57%), pneumonia (52%), and measles (45%) (Black 2003, Bryce 2005). Malnutrition can also be caused by diseases, such as the diseases that cause diarrhea, by reducing the body's ability to convert food into usable nutrients.

According to the most recent estimate that Hunger Notes could find, malnutrition, as measured by stunting, affects 32.5 percent of children in developing countries--one of three (de Onis 2000). Geographically, more than 70 percent of malnourished children live in Asia, 26 percent in Africa and 4 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. In many cases, their plight began even before birth with a malnourished mother. Under-nutrition among pregnant women in developing countries leads to 1 out of 6 infants born with low birth weight. This is not only a risk factor for neonatal deaths, but also causes learning disabilities, mental, retardation, poor health, blindness and premature death.

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9).  The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.

Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The causes of poverty include poor people's lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself. As of 2008 (2004 statistics), the World Bank has estimated that there were an estimated 982 million poor people in developing countries who live on $1 a day or less (World Bank, Understanding Poverty, Chen 2004). This compares to the FAO estimate of  850 million undernourished people.  Extreme poverty remains an alarming problem in the world’s developing regions, despite the advances made in the 1990s till now, which reduced "dollar a day" poverty from (an estimated) 1.23 billion people to 982 million in 2004, a reduction of 20 percent over the period. Progress in poverty reduction has been concentrated in Asia, and especially, East Asia, with the major improvement occurring in China. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people in extreme poverty has increased.

Conflict as a cause of hunger and poverty. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that as of December 2006, there were  at least 22.7 million displaced, including 9.9 million refugees and 12.8 million internally displaced persons (UNHCR 2007). (Refugees flee to another country while internally displaced people move to another area of their own country.) Most people become refugees or are internally displaced as a result of conflict, though there are also natural causes such as drought, earthquakes, and flooding. In the early stages of refugee emergencies, malnutrition runs rampant, exponentially increasing the risk of disease and death (World Health Organization 2003). But, important and (relatively) visible though it is, conflict is less important as poverty as a cause of hunger. (Using the statistics above 798 million people suffer from chronic hunger while 22.7 million people are displaced.)

Hunger is also a cause of poverty. By causing poor health, low levels of energy, and even mental impairment, hunger can lead to even greater poverty by reducing people's ability to work and learn. [Expand with citations]

Progress in reducing the number of hungry people. The target set at the 1996 World Food Summit was to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015 from their number in 1990-92. (FAO uses three year averages in its calculation of undernourished people.) The (estimated) number of undernourished people in developing countries  was 824 million in 1990-92. In 2000-02, the number had declined only slightly to  820 million (854 million worldwide including countries in transition--formerly part of the Soviet bloc--and developed countries [FAO 2006])