What is world hunger? To understand this question, one must understand what 'hunger' is. A simple definition of hunger is "a strong need or desire for food." 1 But such a worldwide problem cannot be described in just one phrase. There are numerous kinds of hunger which exist n this world, experienced either singly or in combinations. One is undernutrition, in which the body does not take in enough calories to sustain itself, maintaining ample body heat and energy. Another kind of hunger is malnutrition. Even though the body may receive enough calories, it is lacking in one or more key nutrients, often due to the consumption of a single kind of food, such as wheat or other grains. Malabsorptive hunger occurs when the body cannot extract the nutrients it need, even if it does receive a balanced intake. This is often caused by intestinal diseases transferred though unsanitary water. Seasonal hunger can be found in areas where the food supply runs out weeks or months before the next harvest is ready. In the extreme, hunger often takes the form of famine, hunger in a large geographical area due to a disruption in the growing/harvesting of crops, or starvation, in which the body begins to consume its own tissues.
If this is what hunger is, then what is world hunger? It is the fact that "1 billion of us are chronically undernourished; 13-18 million of us dead a year; 35,000 of us a day; 24 of us (18 of whom are children) a minute." 2 (These statistics came from a book published in 1985. In Ending World Hunger, published in 1991, the figure was increased to 40,000 children dying from hunger each day.) 3 However, statistics can only begin to tell the story of hunger. Where statistics leave off, personal experiences begin to tell the tale. These are the words of Kamala Markandaya, a writer from India:
For hunger is a curious thing: at first it is with you all the time, waking and sleeping and in your dreams, and your belly cries out insistently, and there is a gnawing and a pain as if your very vitals were being devoured and you must stop it at any cost... Then the pain is no longer sharp but dull and this too is with you always, so that you think of food may times a day and each time a terrible sickness assails you and because you know this you try to avoid the though but you cannot, it is with you. Then that too is gone, all pain, all desire, only a great emptiness is left... and it is now that the strength drains from your limbs and you try to rise and find you cannot, or to swallow water and your throat is powerless... 4Malnutrition and hunger are even worse for children, though. Children experience stunted physical growth from malnourishment, and "even if the malnutrition lasts only for a short while, the lost growth potential can never be regained." 5 Still worse is the effect that malnutrition has on the brain. Mental development in early years is drastically slowed by a lack f necessary proteins. "Once a child falls behind normal brain development, he cannot make it up. A short period of malnutrition results in below average levels of intelligence." 6 So it can be seen that hunger is much more than an empty stomach.
Who then suffers from world hunger, and where? The answer, simply, is billions of people all around the world. One billion people in this world are chronically malnourished or undernourished, and still more receive enough to survive, but not enough to thrive, to live a normal, active life. These people live all around the globe; world hunger is everywhere, not just in a far-off tropical nation, but also right here in the US. The hungry can be found within large cities, but "the majority of hungry people live and work in rural areas." 7 Hunger is a major problem in most Third World developing countries, such as Mexico, Ethiopia, India, Peru, and in many more nations. Hunger is not limited to certain nations, hunger sees no borders. Where there is poverty, there is hunger, and where there is hunger, there are people dying.
Hunger has existed throughout human evolution. It at first was a controlling factor of the size of the human race. Then as agriculture was developed, a greater food production allowed the population to grow larger, still, some people went hungry. In more recent times, however, hunger has become much more prevalent. And naturally, this leads to the question: Why is world hunger such a problem today?
There are many factors which contribute to world hunger. Of these, some are agreed upon, some are disputed. One cause is past colonialism. Included in this are the fact that the colonizers may have brought ravaging diseases, the exploitation by the mother country, and "as colonial systems have weakened, the cutting of political ties with major industrial nations has frequently been accompanied by a loss of assured markets for exports or assured source for needed imports." 8 Another reason is 'neo-colonialism,' in which a multinational corporation indirectly controls some aspects of a poorer country it does business in. Massive debts also plague many developing nations. These nations "send more to the West in debt payments than they get back in foreign aid." 9 Natural disasters can be a major cause of hunger, and are often the "push that...turns malnourished populations into starving ones." 10 War is worse still, destroying land and killing workers. And money spent for military purposes could be better spent on food. "The value of arms imports into the Third World has now climbed above that of grain imports." 11
Some believe that overpopulation is a cause of world hunger, and in some locations, this is true. However, overpopulation is more often the result of extreme poverty and hunger. "[Poor] couples want large families because more children often means more workers to earn money or raise crops for the family." 12 Some say that there is not enough food in the world to feed all the people. But "everyday, the world produces 2 pounds of grain for every man woman and child on earth. That is enough to provide everyone 3,000 calories a day, well above the recommended daily minimum of 2,300 calories." 13 So overpopulation is not so much of a cause of world hunger as the disproportionate supply of food is.
If these reasons tell why there is world hunger, then who is doing anything to stop it? People all around the world are. Foreign aid come in 3 basic forms: Bilateral aid, "the direct transfer of goods and services from one government to another" 14; multilateral aid, "contributions from several countries to an institution, which then allocates the assistance to the recipient." 15; and aid from private volunteer organizations (PVOs). There are several multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations Development Program. Some PVOs are Catholic Relief Services, UNICEF, CARE, and Oxfam. All of these institutions provide aid in numerous ways, such as loans or money transfers, as well as both short- and long-term solutions, including "agricultural training, food aid, construction, and educational programs." 16
After reading and learning about all of the facts surrounding world hunger, I have a few things which I would like to say. I was surprised to learn many of the things I read, such as the fact that every day, 40,000 children die from hunger or hunger-related diseases, not just people, but children. I was also surprised to learn that Third World countries buy more arms than they do food from foreign nations. However, I do disagree with some of the facts stated. One in particular is end note 13, about the amount of grain produced daily. This two pounds per person per day doesn't take into account that the world has to feed more than human mouths; there are animals like cows and pigs that need to be fed too. These animals can provide more protein than plant materials can, either as milk or meat. Therefore I thought that fact was a bit misleading.
I now after doing all this research understand better what a problem hunger is around the globe, and even though I know that every bit helps, I do feel a little helpless to stop it. And besides that, when you ask people what they think about world hunger, many don't know much about it or don't think about it or don't care about it, making the struggle to eliminate it that much more difficult. So we can see that the problem will be difficult indeed to stop.
Sometimes I wonder whether humankind will ever eliminate global hunger. Jesus himself said that we will always have the poor. Still, as Catholics, it is our obligation to help correct this problem. So whether or not we can stop world hunger is not the point, the point is that we must do all that we can to try to stop it. And just sending money to the affected areas is not all that we can or should do. We must help these people to help themselves, teach them and allow them to function viably on the global market. We can't allow ourselves to view the problem as too big to handle. We can conquer global hunger if we all come together.
2 The Hunger Project, Ending Hunger: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1985) 2.
3 Nathan Aaseng, Ending World Hunger, (New York: Franklin Watts, Inc, 1991) 8.
4 Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve, (New York: John Day Co., 1955) 121-122.
5 Aaseng 31-32.
6 Aaseng 32.
7 Ending Hunger 14.
8 Sterling Wortman and Ralph W. Cummings, Jr, To Feed This World, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978) 5.
9 Janie Gustafson, Ph.D. and Ronald J. Wilkins, Justice: Catholic Faith at Work in the World, (Dubuque: Brown-ROA, 1994) 175.
10 Aaseng 35.
11 Facts About Hunger [pamphlet], (Elkhart, IN: Church World Service) 4.
12 Gustafson and Wilkins 176.
13 Gary E. McCuen, World Hunger and Social Justice, (Hudson, WI: Gary E. McCuen Publications, 1986) 11.
14 Ending Hunger 214.
15 Ending Hunger 214.
16 Ending Hunger 214.
Facts About Hunger. [United States]: n.p., n.d.
Gustafson and Wilkins. Justice: Catholic Faith at Work in the World. Dubuque: Brown-ROA, 1994.
The Hunger Project. Ending Hunger: An Idea Whose Time Has Come. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1985.
Markandaya, Kamala. Nectar in a Sieve. New York: John Day Co., 1955.
McCuen, Gary E. World Hunger and Social Justice. Hudson, WI: Gary E. McCuen Publications, 1986.
Wortman and Cummings. To Feed This World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.
Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus. [United States]: Landoll, Inc., n.d.