HUNGER AFFECTS GLOBAL HEALTH

Hunger Affects Global Health

Hunger Affects Global Health

In 2008, food riots around world asked questions about global food security. While many are quick to talk about economic ties with global food production and prices, others pointed out obvious: lack of food security has serious implications for global health. Experts agree that chronic food insecurity requires the long term, integrated approach that can meet ongoing nutritional needs of vulnerable people.

Food security is the complex issue with implications for health, agriculture, trade and environment. There have been over 200 different definitions of food safety published over years. Needless to say this has made process of measuring food security very difficult. In 2008, for example, UN Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO) estimated that there were 850 million hungry people (820 million live in developing countries). This figure has been questioned by experts who say that does not accurately reflect those who hunger and food needs.

UN agencies refer to World Food Summit of 1996, when it comes to defining food security. summit stated that "food security at individual, household, national, regional and global levels [is achieved] when all people at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. "Therefore, development experts concluded that food security covers availability, access, stability and food utilization. latter depends on nutritional knowledge, as well as water and sanitation. In discussing this in family level, question of whether households receive enough food - and if that food is the viable source of nutrition for all family members - is clearly the public health issue.

FAO says that "malnutrition occurs when caloric intake is less than minimum dietary energy requirements (MDER). MDER is amount of energy needed to light activity and the minimum acceptable weight for attained height, and varies by country and year, depending on structure of gender and age of population. "Often, hunger is used interchangeably with malnutrition.

According to FAO estimates, most of world's hungry live in developing countries. Asia-Pacific region is most affected, with an estimated 642 million chronically undernourished people in sub-Saharan Africa, that figure is 265 million in Latin America and Caribbean, 53 million, and Near East and North Africa, 42 million dollars. While these figures are alarming, there is some good news. Action Aid cites Brazil, China and Ghana have been most successful in ...