Physical and Behavioral Responses to Starvation and Famine in Two Populations
Introduction
Famine is an event in which food and resources are inaccessible and the majority of a
population is endangered (Shipton, 1990). When applied to starvation this definition is accurate
with one additional idea: starvation is the result of inaccessibility to resources. Many factors
contribute to the progression of famine and the resulting starvation. One of the key factors to
consider is the delineation between naturally occurring and man-made starvation and famine.
Naturally occurring famine is the result of agricultural or environmental causes such as lack of
rainfall or poor soil conditions. Man-made famine is the deliberate denial of food to people
“with the aim of starving them into submission” (De Waal 1991:77). Man-made famine and the
resulting starvation will be the basis for this paper.
The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the physical and behavioral
responses to starvation and famine in residents of the Warsaw Ghetto during Nazi occupation
and the citizens of famine-prone areas of the West African Sahel region. The location of the two
regions discussed can be found on the maps (Figure 1 and Figure 2) at the end of this paper. The
connections and contrasts of the two populations will be demonstrated through review and
presentation of models from literature, a brief background on the populations to be discussed,
examples of the populations as they fit the models and a brief discussion of limitations and
opportunity for further study.
Literature Review: Physical and Behavioral Response Models
Physical Response
The comparison between the Warsaw Ghetto and the West African Sahel region can best
be exa...
... middle of paper ...
...ntainer
Institute, United States Army.
Tushnet L. 1966. The uses of adversity. South Brunswick, New Jersey: Thomas Yoseloff.
Page 18
17
Watts M. 1991. Entitlements or empowerment? famine and starvation in Africa. Review of
African Political Economy, 51:9-26.
Whitney, E. and Rady Rolfes S. 2005. Understanding nutrition, 10
th
ed. Belmont, California:
Thomson Wadsworth.
WHO. Health conditions aggravate southern Africa famine. (August 4, 2002);
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/who63/en/.
Page 19
18
Figure 1. Map of Warsaw, Poland and location of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Britannica Student Encyclopedia: Warsaw." 2008. (March 2, 2008);
http://www.student.britannica.com/eb/art-55185/Warsaw-Poland.
Page 20
19
Figure 2. Map of Sudan, Ethiopia and the West African Sahel Region.
Adapted from: http://z.about.com/d/worldnews/1/7/U/1/-/-/sudan_map.jpg.
Starvation was crucial during the Holocaust, which separated you from life or death. This affected most of the prisoners from doing their tasks. In the book Ellie says, “ Bread, soup - these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.” Elie Wiesel was starving at some point of every day since he was forced into labor and torture. He talks about how these two items were his whole life, because that's all the food they received. With only focusing on food they must have been in the ultimate stage of starvation. When in the ultimate stage of hunger you become “prone to Muscle spasms and twitches happen when the potassium level becomes dangerously low. Extreme
Famine can be highly detrimental to human health and cause a lot of sickness throughout humans. It is clear that there are many biological effects caused by famine but there are also many effects on society and human agency. Famine can cause a breakdown in society and create barriers to economic growth. This can lead to dramatic changes in religions, cultural practices and the structure of government.
In this paper I will examine both Peter Singer’s and Onora O 'Neill 's positions on famine relief. I will argue that O’Neill’s position is more suitable than Singer’s extreme standpoint. First I will, present O’Neill’s argument. I will then present a possible counter-argument to one of my premises. Finally I will show how this counter-argument is fallacious and how O’Neill’s argument in fact goes through.
production of goods and foods decreased drastically and this ultimately led to starvation as people were
Friedman, U. (2011, July 19). What It took for the U.N to declare famine in Somalia. Retrieved
Since there was hardly any usable land or animals and families had no money, food supplies were becoming limited. There was very little food being produced from the remaining animals because they could not get enough to eat to stay healthy. There also were no crops that could be harvested and eaten.
Gupta, A. "Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System." War Resisters League. N.p., Dec. 2009. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.
World Food Programme. (2013). Comprehensive food security and vulnerability analysis (CFSVA): Uganda. Retrieved from http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/ena/wfp256989.pdf
allow such terrible things to occur as they do in today's world: The starving in
that it 's in due to human activities.. First with the vertical farming, “crops can be produced all
One of the major problems of poverty is hunger. The poorest people in society face hunger. Hunger is
A great famine occurred in Ireland from around 1845 to about 1852 and devastated the country. Approximately one million people died of starvation or diseases caused by this famine, and about one million more people emigrated Ireland and moved to other countries to try to find a better life. One country that a lot of people moved to is the United States. Numerous people immigrated to the U.S. and created settlements all around the country. To provide for themselves in these settlements, most of the people farmed the land because that was what they knew how to do. The primary cause of this famine was a fungus-like protist called Phytophtera infestans that attacked Ireland’s potato crop, causing them to rot. Unfortunately, the people of Ireland were heavily dependent on potatoes, not only as a main source of nutrition, but also as a main source of income and export. Ireland’s land consolidation, agricultural laws, and their relationship with England did not help the people with this problem. The Great Potato Famine in Ireland was a terrible event in history that changed the lives of millions of people.
In our opinion we think the leading cause of world hunger is because of poverty. Property is the state of being extremely poor. The world has 7.25 billion people in it, and 11.3% of the people live in poverty (about 805 million people). People that live in poverty do not have the money to buy the food for themselves or their families.
that must be eliminated by every possible means. That being said, food security has a direct
Food insecurity and poor nutrition is an alarmingly large problem for low income families, especially in developing countries. Many strategies exist to fight this problem, although not many of these address all the factors contributing to it along with all the possible solutions to solve it. In many cases, multiple strategies must correlate and work together so that all the determinants of this issue are addressed and can fight food insecurity from different angles. This essay will discuss the significance of the problem, a range of possible strategies to solve the problem, and go into detail on a select few that will correlate and work together to solve different factors of food insecurity and poor nutrition.