Realization of world hunger is a problem which needs to be a concern for all the people of the world. It is not a problem just for those it directly affects.
As citizens of the United States of America (U.S.A.) we constitute about 6% of the world's population. If the students in this classroom represented the world population then two people (have 2 students stand) would represent the population of the United States. Imagine these two people consuming 40%, or a little under half, of all the resources produced by everyone in the class. For example, these two would eat close to half of all combined lunches of the class.
It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it. And, if not ridiculous, it certainly sounds unfair. Well, it is true! The United States constitutes about 6% of the world's population and consumes about 40% of the world's resources. Resources include fuel, manufacturing materials, fabrics, food, and many other commodities. (Illustrate these facts by drawing pie charts on the board - one for population and one for world resources.)
In the U.S.A. we have so much food that we have millions of people who are trying to eat less, so they can lose weight. Dieting is almost a national obsession and is sometimes a
health hazard.
Food is the resource we are most concerned about in our discussion on world hunger. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that of the world's 6-billion-plus people: (NOTE: these facts would make a good bulletin board)
- at least ¾ of a billion people suffer from some form of malnutrition.
- about 50,000 people die each day as a result of malnutrition.
- 800 million people know what it is like to go to bed hungry.
- about 200 million children under the age of 5 are underweight.
- millions of children die each year from the diseases of poverty: parasites and infectious diseases such as whooping cough, measles, tuberculosis, and malaria, with accompanying diarrhea, which interact with poor nutrition in a vicious cycle.
- one child dies of these causes every two seconds
- 15 children have died in the 30 seconds it took to read these statistics.
The four groups most often suffer the effects of hunger and malnutrition due to high nutrient needs or low tissue reserves are: children, pregnant women, those who are ill, and the elderly.
People in other countries also have an obsession. Their obsession is to have enough food to eat and to maintain life. Many are so poor they do not have the means to buy enough food for their families to stay well and stay alive. Many countries do not have the abundance of food which U.S. citizens have available.
FACTS TO KNOW:
- The number of hungry and malnourished people in the world continues to grow.
- The problem is not that some nations are over-populated; it is that some nations have inadequate food production.
- Most people in the United States do not know hunger as "ceaseless discomfort, weakness, and pain"; people in developing countries do know hunger in those ways.
Pose the following question to students: "How can hunger be controlled?" To answer that question, other questions must be asked and answered first. What is meant by restricting the poor's access to food? How can these restrictions be removed? Adequate nutrition can be achieved only when the economics, political, and social structures that hinder food consumption become the targets of change, both at home and abroad.
WHAT IS HUNGER?Everyone knows the feeling of hunger as the urge to eat that signals the time for the next meal. But many know hunger as a constant companion because that meal does not follow. Then hunger is ceaseless discomfort, weakness, and pain. The term as used here means a continuous lack of the nutrients necessary to achieve and maintain optimum health, well-being, and protection from disease. People who live with hunger may simply have too little food to eat, or may not choose enough nutritious foods from those available. One form of hunger is a "choice they are forced to make" and the other is a "choice they freely make". To say this, though, is to fail to describe the depth of the experience of living without food. The following excerpt from a writer in India describes hunger in more personal terms:
For hunger is a curious thing: at first it is with you all the time, waking and sleeping and in your dreams, and your belly cries out insistently, and there is a knawing and a pain as if your very vitals were being devoured, and you must stop it at any cost, and you buy a moment's respite even while you know and fear the sequel. Then the pain is no longer sharp but dull, and this too is with you always, so that you think of food many times a day and each time a terrible sickness assails you, and because you know this you try to avoid the thought, but you cannot, it is with you. Then that too is gone, all pain, all desire, only a great emptiness is left, like the sky, like a well in drought, and it is now that the strength drains from your limbs, and you try to rise and you cannot, or to swallow and your throat is powerless, and both the swallow and the effort of retaining the liquid tax you to the uttermost.
When people in the United States go to the grocery store they have a choice of thousands of products including fresh meats, fruits and vegetables, and dairy products, as well as countless prepared foods. Few nations in the world have these choices. Even people in some supposedly developed countries have limited food choices.
In the book Mig Pilot, John Barron tells of the escape of Viktor Belenko, a Russian pilot, who defects to the United States. At one point his CIA companions take Viktor to a shopping center. This story illustrates that in many modern countries people have limited resources and only the very rich in many other nations can afford the things that United States citizens often take for granted.
In countries known as third world countries, or developing countries, the food situation is much more severe. In countries such as India, several areas of Africa, and parts of South America hundreds of people die of starvation every day.
http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=1271
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