Solving World Hunger through Microenterprises, Policy, and Community Health Workers
The World Hunger Education Service (2011) describes world hunger as the want or scarcity of food or nutrients in a country. World hunger is an insidious issue that impedes progress for millions worldwide. World hunger is not only a physical need, but also has emotional and ethical implications. Living in “obesogenic” America where supermarkets display hundreds of thousands of food items and obesity affects more than 30.6% of all Americans (Nation Masters, 2011), it is unimaginable to concede that world hunger still exists. As a U. S. dietitian working with many morbidly obese patients and others with obesity-related diseases, it is unthinkable that it could be fair to have people starving to death in a world filled with food.
Food is the sustenance of life, without which people die. Fairness demands that food be equally distributed and justly provided to all human beings. This writer reflected on the issue of world hunger and the possible ethical implications and decided to take action by developing this proposal to end world hunger. This proposal has one major intervention with three tiers or levels. As a part of this proposal, this writer will discuss why world hunger is an ethical issue, review its impact on the global community, describe the positive changes that could occur if this proposal was implemented, identify fiscal and human resources needed to implement this change, describe global stakeholders, and discuss why solving world hunger is of any consequence to the functioning of the world. However, before discussing world hunger and its ethical implications, it seems timely to provide a brief background on ethics in general and glo...
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The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in the years 2010-2012. Ellen Gustafson has spoken in ted talks on the issue of Obesity plus Hunger equals one global food issue. One the main issues Gustafson speaks of is world hunger and how to end it. She also speaks briefly on obesity and how in comes into play with world hunger. Even though some people would argue that there just is not enough food in the world, world hunger and obesity can easily be prevented and eliminated with proper knowledge and programs.
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One of the most insidious “diseases” plaguing our nation is poor nutrition. While obesity is an epidemic, we focus too much on heavy people and not enough on all the others around them that are truly malnourished and yet don’t show any “traditional” signs. These other portions of the population shows their irregular nourishment through high rates of chronic illness and even possibly through mental illness. Just because someone is “this”, does not mean they are nutritionally sound. So while in 10 years’ time almost 50% of our population will be obese, a much higher percentage will be malnourished if we keep on this trend. Inevitably malnourished populations will continue to be a public health crisis through the rise in chronic disease and higher medical costs due to the burden these populations put on the healthcare system. This is why we need to focus on reducing food deserts, increase nutritional education at a young age, and create a culture of mindfulness around cooking and eating whole foods.
Muhammad Yunus, a civil society leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, once said, “Once poverty is gone, we’ll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They’ll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society — how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair.” Hunger can be defined as the physical state of desiring food. Hunger may ultimately lead to malnutrition, where one is unable to eat sufficiently enough to meet basic nutritional needs. According to the World Food Programme (2014), hunger and malnutrition are in fact the number one risk to health worldwide — even greater than the combination of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. There are over 842 million undernourished people who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition worldwide, everyday. That means that one in eight people do not receive enough food to be healthy and lead active lives (World Food Programme, 2014). Fortunately, hunger and malnutrition are easily solvable, though everyone must work together to permanently bring an end to it.
These three disciplines will be the foundation to helping solve the problem of world hunger for this paper. To understand the issue even further it is imperative to now gather literature and information surrounding the issue in relation to the disciplines mentioned above, and perhaps opens new doors to other disciplines that are related to solving the issue of world hunger (Repko, 2011). This will help to further map out the problem and give us a starting point when gathering
Imagine not being able to reach into your refrigerator and pull out a snack. Think about those mornings when you forget to eat breakfast and your stomach is growling the whole morning. Now imagine not being able to suppress that feeling. Imagine feeling that hunger day after day. This is reality for almost a sixth of the world’s population. Is there any good news? Yes there is. There are many ways for us to reduce world hunger. This essay will look at the causes of world hunger as well as short-term, and long-term, solutions. World hunger can be solved using a combination of ideas and people working together.
Many philosophers and individuals have argued that we are obligated to try to eliminate world hunger. But often these philosophers and individuals provide different reasons as to why we are obligated to reduce world hunger. On the one hand we have individuals like Peter Singer who take the utilitarian point of view. Utilitarianism argues that our actions should increase the overall happiness in the world. On the other hand we have people like Onora O’Neill who sides with the Kantian point of view. The Kantian point of view argues that we should eliminate world hunger because the nature of this act is good, hence it makes it right. Although, both sides arrive at the same conclusion, that doesn’t mean that we should accept that both ways of thinking
At the end, many people may not recognize this problem and maybe the hunger problem that the United States faces may not be as dramatic as in comparison to other countries, but this is only another reason to find and create solutions to stop hunger worldwide; It’s time to educate ourselves about the causes of hunger in America.
In conclusion, hunger is a constant, chronic pain distressing many children. Famished children should have become a thing of the past a long time ago. The thought may seem impossible, but the world produces enough food to feed everyone. In the world as a whole, per capita food availability has risen from about 2220 kcal/person/day in the early 1960s to 2790 kcal/person/day in 2006-08, while developing countries also recorded a leap (2015 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and
The world hunger is the deadliest disease in the world today, despite the fact that there is more food on earth, but fewer people cannot have access to this food, or even get the opportunity to grow some due to poverty, or lack of good soil to grow crops. World hunger is caused when natural resources become destroyed by earthquakes, or civil war. Another reason is drought and flooding. World hunger is also an issue in undeveloped countries because of political corruption, poverty, environmental issues, overpopulation, economics, and pestilence. It is sad to see people dying from malnutrition, and starvation every second. While we that have it doesn’t seem to appreciate it but waste it instead of helping those that in need of it. As you can see this a real problem, as debated in my visual
In the past ten years the world population exceeded six billion people with most of the growth occurring in the poorest, least developed countries in the world. The rapidly increasing population and the quickly declining amount of land are relative and the rate at which hunger is increasing rises with each passing year. We cannot afford to continue to expand our world population at such an alarming rate, for already we are suffering the consequences. Hunger has been a problem for our world for thousands of years. But now that we have the technology and knowledge to stamp it out, time is running short.
What do you think about when someone says world hunger? When we look at the words, world hunger, we see more than just a problem, we see a major issue for the world as a whole. The Word hunger, is derived from three terms. Webster mainly defines hunger as, "The uneasy or painful sensation caused by the want or craving for food." This being said we see hunger in the USA as a small ordeal. When our belly rumble we tend to go to a vending machine, or McDonalds, or our favorite eating diner. However, world hunger is a big issue, where there is no simply trip to a vending machine or McDonalds solutions. Not only does world hunger affect a large amount of the world and the children, but there are even more cases where this hunger can lead to many dangerous things such as death.
Hunger is the most pressing issue we face. One out of every eight people in the world today suffers from chronic undernourishment caused by food scarcity. 19,000 kids die everyday from hunger. The world has more than 1.5 times enough food to feed everyone on this entire planet although with some people making less than two dollars an hour, it is hardly imaginable to be able to. At least the number of people who die everyday of famine is going down every year because more and more people care. We want to keep this number going down not only by the year, but also by the day. If we want this to happen, we have to take action. Now.