facts

 HUNGRY NATIONS 

 

World hunger refers to hunger aggregated to the global level. Related terms include food insecurity and malnutrition. Food insecurity refers to limited or unreliable access to foods that are safe and nutritionally adequate (National Research Council, 2006). Malnutrition is a condition resulting from insufficient intake of biologically necessary nutrients (National Research Council, 2006). Although malnutrition includes both overnutrition and undernutrition, the focus for global hunger is undernutrition. 

There are two basic types of malnutrition/undernutrition. The first and most important is protein-energy malnutrition (PEM), or 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 the development and maintenance of muscles. Protein-energy malnutrition is the more lethal form of malnutrition/hunger and is the type of malnutrition that is referred to when world hunger is discussed. This leads to growth failure. Principal types of growth failure are: 

• Based on physical measurements, like weight, malnutrition can be broken down into moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) and severe acute malnutrition (SAM), with SAM being worse (Black et al., 2016). 
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• There are two types of acute malnutrition. Wasting (also called marasmus) is having a very low weight for a person’s height. Nutritional edema (also called kwashiorkor) is swollen feet, face or limbs (UNICEF, 2015). See visual illustrations here. 
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• Stunting is being too short for a person’s age. It is a slow, cumulative process and develops over a long period as a result of inadequate nutrition or repeated infections, or both. Stunted children may have normal body proportions but look younger than their actual age. 

 

The united nations food and agriculture organization (FAO) estimates that about 815 million people of the 7.6 billion people in the world, or 10.7%, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2016. Almost all the hungry people live in lower-middle-income countries. There are 11 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO 2015; for individual country estimates, see Annex 1. For other valuable sources, especially if interested countries or regions, see IFPRI 2016 and Rosen et. al. 2016). 

 

 

                                         FACTS 

 

• Globally 150 million under-five-year old were estimated to be stunted in 2017. (UNICEF, WHO, & The World Bank, 2018). 
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• The global trend in stunting prevalence and numbers affected is decreasing. Between 2000 and 2017 stunting prevalence declined from 33 percent to 22 percent and numbers declined from 198 million to 150 million (UNICEF, WHO, & The World Bank, 2018). 
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• In 2017, about half of all stunted children under five years of age lived in Asia and over one-third in Africa (UNICEF, WHO, & The World Bank, 2018). 
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• Globally, 50.5 million under-five-year old were wasted (or low weight for height) in 2017 (UNICEF, WHO, & The World Bank, 2018). 
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• Globally, wasting prevalence in 2017 was estimated at almost 8 percent (UNICEF, WHO, & The World Bank, 2018). 
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• Approximately two-thirds of all wasted children under five years old lived in Asia and over one-quarter in Africa, with similar proportions for severely wasted children (UNICEF, WHO, & The World Bank, 2018). 

DONE BY RAMSHA