2010 Global Hunger Index: Over a billion humans undernourished

[Nessus]

Hunger index shows one billion without enough food

By Ania Lichtarowicz Health reporter, BBC News

More than one billion people in the world are now undernourished, according to latest figures.
The 2010 Global Hunger Index shows that child malnutrition is the biggest cause of hunger worldwide, accounting for almost half of those affected.

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia were shown to have the highest levels of hunger.
The report's authors called on nations to tackle child malnutrition in order to reduce global hunger.
The Global Hunger Index is produced by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines hunger as the consumption of fewer than 1,800 kilocalories a day - the minimum required to live a healthy and productive life.

Despite the number of undernourished people in the world falling between 1990 and 2006, the report's authors say in that number has crept up in recent years, with the data from 2009 showing more than one billion hungry people.

The Global Health Index (GHI) is calculated for 122 developing and transition countries.
Twenty-nine countries - mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia - have levels of hunger described as "extremely alarming" or "alarming".

The GHI shows hunger increasing in nine countries; North Korea and eight sub-Saharan African nations. The Democratic Republic of Congo saw the biggest increase; GHI rose by more than 65%.

The scores are based on the proportion of people who are calorie deficient, the proportion of children under five who are underweight and the child mortality rate.






The global food price crisis and the worldwide recession have contributed to the recent rise, says the report.

Children under the age of two are considered to be at most risk. Malnourishment at this stage harms physical and mental development and its effects are mostly irreversible causing life long damage.
In some sub-Saharan African countries, for example Burundi and Madagascar, about half the children have stunted growth because of they do not have access to an appropriate diet.

The authors argue that improving child nutrition would have the biggest effect on reducing global hunger.

They estimate that child malnutrition could be cut by about a third by providing improved health care and nutrition, not only to young children but also to mothers during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Marie Ruel, director of IFPRI's Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division and co-author of the report, said many countries had to accelerate progress in reducing child malnutrition.

"Considerable research shows that the window of opportunity for improving nutrition spans from conception to age two," she observed.

"After age two, the negative effects of undernutrition are largely irreversible."

The report adds that reducing the numbers of hungry people will also significantly improve productivity and economic development.

That 1800 kcal sounds like a lot, but these are people who have to do physical labour to survive, and it's not like they have nine-to-five work hours, either.

Seems pretty obvious that these areas can't improve much if so many people are just withering away, but food aid hasn't fixed the situation either. Do we start air-lifting huge amounts of boot straps, or what?

[Hazir]

Actually, I suspect that food aid has made the problems for these people worse, not better. Free food effectively means that the efforts and products of local farmers are worthless, thus robbing them of a livelyhood and making people more dependent on food being shipped in from abroad. I think what we should do is stop subsidizing our foodproduction and stop dumping our excess production because of those subsidies in Africa.

We = EU and US.

[EyeKhan]

Seems pretty obvious that these areas can't improve much if so many people are just withering away, but food aid hasn't fixed the situation either. Do we start air-lifting huge amounts of boot straps, or what?

No you idiot. FISHING POLES, with instruction manuals. Teach 'em to fish and they'll, you know.

sorry.... this isn't funny

[Loki]

That 1800 kcal sounds like a lot, but these are people who have to do physical labour to survive, and it's not like they have nine-to-five work hours, either.

Seems pretty obvious that these areas can't improve much if so many people are just withering away, but food aid hasn't fixed the situation either. Do we start air-lifting huge amounts of boot straps, or what?

Food aid isn't the problem. The problem is A) the distribution of that aid (most countries in question don't have good distribution networks), and B) the crowding out effect that food aid has on local production of food.

Edit: Though North Korea is only "serious", which makes me doubt the validity of the numbers...

[EyeKhan]

Edit: Though North Korea is only "serious", which makes me doubt the validity of the numbers...

I don't know for sure, but I think that starvation thing was a particularly bad few years and things are little better there now.

[Nessus]

I was looking at that too, but with Stalinist nations it's kinda hard to export any kind of reliable information.

[Loki]

I was looking at that too, but with Stalinist nations it's kinda hard to export any kind of reliable information.

In which case they just shouldn't report the information, as they do for Somalia, Oman, Iran, Afghanistan, and Papua New Guinea.

I don't know for sure, but I think that starvation thing was a particularly bad few years and things are little better there now.

There's still starvation in North Korea; people just aren't dying by the hundreds of thousands. The situation there is certainly worse than in India.

[EyeKhan]

I was looking at that too, but with Stalinist nations it's kinda hard to export any kind of reliable information.

Did you see any of the news coverage of the Big Party in NK over the weekend? I'm SO pround of that young man. He's going to be a fine Leader. <wipes tear>

There's still starvation in North Korea; people just aren't dying by the hundreds of thousands. The situation there is certainly worse than in India.

I wonder how much the improvement has to do with the number who have starved to death, reducing food demand... What a crazy place lol

[Loki]

There are stories that even soldiers in North Korea are malnourished. The average height in the country is about 8 inches less than in South Korea...

I also wonder if some of the countries with the worst statistics are the ones who just want more money from the international community (i.e. are either democratic or have strong relationships with Western donors).

[EyeKhan]

Cynic.

[Nessus]

Cynic.

The blue helmets just want to steal everyone's tax dollars, dontcha know.

[EyeKhan]

The blue helmets just want to steal everyone's tax dollars, dontcha know.

Everyone wants to steal them. At gun point. We're all being ROBBED! We need to rise up, gather round, rock this place to the ground. Burn it up, lets go for broke, watch the night go up in smoke. After the revolution we'll build nations with NO taxes! Everything will be fee for service to private companies. There'll be tons of competition and the price of everthing will go way down and guess what? No guns pointed at you to pay anything. (just pray that you can pay.... )

[']['ear]

What fraction are over-nourished?



Oh, and Chabouli:


Err, except for mercury, and PCBs, oil spills, increasing red tide blooms....

[Nessus]

What fraction are over-nourished?

I guess the Communist response would be moving everyone with adult type diabetes into the starving zones

[EyeKhan]

Two Birds? One Stone.

[']['ear]

Yesterday I met the wife at a shopping center nearby (we were both driving from work, and met at a midpoint to take one car out of town). Near the entrance was a Burger King, and I was entertaining myself watching the people go through the drive-through (this was ~5:30 pm). Noted, 4 of the 5 cars passing through had these characteristics: 1) they were driving maximum size SUVs, and 2) they were REALLY obese (I'm talking the billows variety). It was striking. Then there was one skinny dude in a busted old joint of a car.

Fucking rats with a wire in their pleasure center, can't stop pushing the button.

[GGT]

Hey, why change the topic to western obesity, Tear? Even if all of our excess food was distributed and consumed, we'd still have some who you call "over nourished". (That's a misnomer, though. Lots of our obese aren't really well nourished, just over-fed in carbs and empty calories.)

Food is political now, on a global scale. Hazir and Loki touched on that. Nessie, too---"bootstraps" is a political ideology these days. Short of moving masses of people out of barren deserts that don't have a self-sustaining food supply without tons of foreign aid, or displacing local "tribal war lords" that control distribution, I don't know what the answer is. Does anyone?

[Lewkowski]

Food is political now, on a global scale. Hazir and Loki touched on that. Nessie, too---"bootstraps" is a political ideology these days. Short of moving masses of people out of barren deserts that don't have a self-sustaining food supply without tons of foreign aid, or displacing local "tribal war lords" that control distribution, I don't know what the answer is. Does anyone?

Not without national building or war. The countries battling with malnourishment have more to do with corrupt governments then with a genuine shortage of food on a global level. Plenty of people/governments want to give food to the starving but since distribution is often in the hands of corrupt governments the only real way to end the starvation is to remove their government and put something else in its place. And such an idea just isn't going to fly especially after Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Illusions]

Plenty of people/governments want to give food to the starving but since distribution is often in the hands of corrupt governments the only real way to end the starvation is to remove their government and put something else in its place.

The other problem is that a lot of the poorer people living in these countries make a living off of farming, so while you could provide these countries with tons of free food, you'd also devastate a lot of (to them) local economies...

[Lewkowski]

The other problem is that a lot of the poorer people living in these countries make a living off of farming, so while you could provide these countries with tons of free food, you'd also devastate a lot of (to them) local economies...

Again the issue isn't food production its food distribution. If there is enough food grown by the populace then dumping food doesn't help. If there isn't enough food be produced and an outside agency makes up for the difference between what is being made and what is needed the economic impact won't be that large.

[GGT]

Again the issue isn't food production its food distribution. If there is enough food grown by the populace then dumping food doesn't help. If there isn't enough food be produced and an outside agency makes up for the difference between what is being made and what is needed the economic impact won't be that large.

But that's still a distribution problem. If war lords block transportation, or if costs of transit are too great (either in getting killed, or the high price of oil), we still end up with people who don't have enough food.

[Illusions]

Thought: When approached with the problem that a lot of people are undernourished, or there are not enough resources for people, the response is usually that the solution would be to produce more food (or whatever resource). How about just producing less people...

[Loki]

How about a solution that's possible to implement?

[Nessus]

Your government has spent the past 60 years figuring out how to implement that particular solution; it's certainly possible, but it might take Palin 2012 to happen in the near future.

[Loki]

Your government has spent the past 60 years figuring out how to implement that particular solution; it's certainly possible, but it might take Palin 2012 to happen in the near future.

It's possible to force people in third world countries to have fewer kids? The UN and various NGOs have been trying that for half a century. The only time this happens is when the countries become more prosperous.

[Nessus]

This solution hasn't been field tested so far, mostly due to property values

[Loki]

That wouldn't cause a backlash or anything. It's not like there's enough terrorism in the world.

[Nessus]

Hey, all you wanted was a possible solution. That's one of the few, maybe the only one. But there's no free lunches in this world, right?

[Loki]

You know, I'm pretty sure that having several billion people trying to kill you would be far worse than any supposed benefit of this plan.

[GGT]

Thought: When approached with the problem that a lot of people are undernourished, or there are not enough resources for people, the response is usually that the solution would be to produce more food (or whatever resource). How about just producing less people...

The irony is that developed nations are living so much longer, we need young people to keep coming into the world. Youth may be in the 'wrong places', though. But it's not too easy to move people around, let alone force them to move. Back to square one?