Editorials, Opinion and Letters

Letters to the Editor

Dear Hunger Notes,
Check out my new song and video called “Mommy, I’m Hungry”. Maybe it can be used to help the cause!  Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN793DmVgrU&feature=c4-overview&list=UUoT7YwZk4FLagioii_zuLCw

Thanks,
Barry David Butler

Dear Barry,
Good song! Thanks very much for sharing it with us. I hope Hunger Notes readers listen to it too. Excellent lyrics.
Editor, Hunger Notes

Dear Hunger Notes,
I am a student in Connecticut and for our service project (for the end of the year) we must get an interview of someone related to our cause that we are working to help. I have chosen the problem of world hunger, and for my essay, I was wondering if someone might be able to provide a short summary on what they think hunger is, how it has developed, and what everyone can do to help. If you don't do school interviews, that's totally fine!
Thank you,
A.C.

Dear Anabel,
Here are my answers to your questions:

 1. What hunger is:
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. 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.
 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.
 For a good insight into "the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food..." see our hunger quiz "What does long term hunger feel like?" http://worldhunger.org/contributefood_lthungerfeeling.htm

 2. How hunger has developed.
 Hunger is a natural aspect of the world for animals, including ourselves. In the wild, many animals die of hunger or related causes. For humans, Malthus gave the classic statement, saying that human population growth was checked by famine and (often related) disease. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus ).
In addition to population growth, two key other factors in causing hunger are conflict, and a very unequal distribution of income due to the political and economic systems of the world, so that the poor are often reduced to starvation.

 3. What everyone can do to help.
There are two key ways in which you and other people in the United States can help reduce hunger and poverty: understanding-- this implies learning-- and action. Action can take three key forms: influencing public policy, contributing financially, and working directly with poor people. Please see our section "You can help reduce hunger" for further details. http://worldhunger.org/reduce.htm

Thanks for asking some fundamental questions!

Editor, Hunger Notes

Dear Hunger Notes,
My name is N.B. and I am a sixth grader at Brookside Intermediate School. I am conducting research on poverty, and I have a question I hope you can answer. Do you the most recent statistics for the world's poverty rate broken down by country? I would greatly appreciate any information you can provide.
Thank you for your consideration, N.B.

Dear N.B.,

I think the best place to start would be the World Bank's poverty page http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/home/. The World Bank is the acknowledged institution for providing poverty estimates. The main information provided on that page is $1.25 a day poverty for all countries (that have the information) but it is not in tabular form. Also see the two links provided on that page, the poverty and equity databank, and the data dashboards. These are somewhat harder to use but do end up with useful information. I didn't find a nice, handy table with the information by country. I hope this is helpful--good luck!

Editor, Hunger Notes

Dear Hunger Notes, I am a junior at Highland Park Senior High in St.Paul MN, USA. I have a few questions to be answered if it's no problem:
1. Why is there such a thing as World Hunger?
2. Is there not enough food to go around?
3. What is one way to solve this issue?
4. What countries have the highest rate of hunger?
5. Is poverty sort of a combination with Hunger?
Thank you very much for your time.
Sincerely,  F.B.T.

Dear F.B.T.,
Here are my answers to your questions:

2. Is there not enough food to go around? There is enough food to go around. See our the section on "Is there enough food to feed everyone" in our World Hunger Facts http://worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm .

5. Is poverty sort of a combination with Hunger? Poverty is the main cause of hunger. See the section "Causes of poverty" in our World Hunger Facts.

1. Why is there such a thing as World Hunger? See the section "Causes of poverty" in our World Hunger Facts. I would say also that people do not care enough to address the problem fully in their own nations--this for various reasons such as pursuit of their own self-interest, and because many governments  are ill-suited to address a major problem such as hunger.

3. What is one way to solve this issue? I think that at bottom the issue will be solved when very poor people have jobs that lift them out of poverty and thus hunger. China has done a very good job of lifting many of its people out of hunger and you might look more closely at what China has done.

4.What countries have the highest rate of hunger? Look at the latest FAO edition of The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011. It can be downloaded at http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/i2330e/i2330e.pdf  At the end (p. 48) , there is a technical annex which gives the proportion of undernourished in the total population and you can see which countries have the highest rate of hunger.

Thanks very much for asking these useful questions.
Editor, Hunger Notes

 

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