When I read this chart, and other statistics online about the number of hungry people, I wanted to know how it was possible. What factors caused this many people to go hungry, and be unable to afford such a basic necessity. The Hunger Project website narrowed it down to five basic categories: Environment, diseases, poverty, sanitation, and gender discrimination.
Environment:
Environmental concerns such as climate change, deforestation, water scarcity, decreasing biodiversity, and soil erosion are all factors that cause hunger. If people are unable to grow food because of a lack of soil, water, or infertile land, that food is kept from those people. When natural disasters such as fires, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornados occur, many food sources are again unavailable.
Diseases:
Diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS, have greatly impacted the health of people in undeveloped areas. People who are sick often cannot work, and therefore not provide for their families. Without the proper resources, diseases can spread explosively, and infect thousands of people in just a matter of time. Livestick and crops can also be diseased or contaminated and unfit for human consumption.
Poverty:
Poverty is another leading factor of hunger. People who are poor may not be able to afford healthy food, or even any food at all.
Sanitation:
Sanitation or a lack thereof is another huge factor contributing to world hunger. A lack of sanitaion spreads diseases, and affects the health of huge amounts of people.
Gender Discrimination:
Women and children suffer the worst of hunger in most places. Some societies today are still male dominated, and they often consume the majority of their families food.
Can you think of any other leading causes of hunger? Where you surprised that Asia and the Pacific held such a huge fraction of the word's hungry people? Please comment and let me know what you think!
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ReplyDeleteHi Shelby! What an informative post alerting people to the immediate issue of world hunger. I never considered gender discrimination to be a cause of world hunger, but your research clearly shows that women and children are thought of last when it comes to food. I'm not too surprised that countries in Asia hold such a large fraction of the world's hungry people since many countries in Asia are developing or third world countries. I was, however, a bit more shocked to see that even in developed countries, there are still millions of people left without a steady food supply. In developed countries, I wouldn't think that sanitation or diseases would play as much of a role in world hunger, but natural disasters and poverty can obviously still affect developed countries. Great job on your blog!
ReplyDeleteVery nice.
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