As of 2024, 673 million, which translates into 8.2% of the global population, has experienced world hunger, according to a point estimate from the UN World Programme ( WFP). Along those lines, over 3.1 billion people could not even afford a healthy diet. World hunger has been an issue for a very long time and was experiencing significant decreases until 2015-16, along with a sharp rise in 2020-21, which was sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Many of the reasons for the worsening cases of world hunger are all related to humanity in one way or another, with things such as climate change affecting food production, poverty, and high food prices being some of the things sparking world hunger’s constant rise.
Around the world, 9 million people die each year from world hunger, which is more deaths then malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis combined. This translates to about 25,000 deaths per day. Along these lines, 3 million children die each year from malnutrition, and 149 million children suffer from malnutrition each year.
In 2024, 47.4 million families in the U.S. alone suffered from hunger. Many families were not able to keep nutritious food, have food, or had to limit the amount of food they can buy because of increased prices, which kept these families in non-nutritious households’ health being severely affected. Acute malnutrition, which is not having enough nutrition to meet daily energy and nutritional needs, is a severe and potentially-life threatening disease caused by hunger, especially in children. The growth of the immune system and development can all be severely affected by malnutrition which can lead to permanent damage. Nearly 1 and 5 children die due to malnutrition or illnesses caused by malnutrition. Children are more likely to be severely and permanently affected by malnutrition as they are still developing.
Tyler McGovern, a freshman at Carolina Forest High School, believes that world hunger can be eliminated from the combined efforts of the world leaders and our communities.
McGovern stated, “ There is this quote; it goes like this: ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ If we could have the ability to ‘teach them how to fish,’ then this problem of world hunger could be solved.”
We, as a community and a government, have the time, money and resources to be able to help world hunger. However, if it’s not affecting a direct community or family members, it’s often left to cause more destruction in the world and to human lives.
Sources:
UN World Food Program: https://www.wfp.org/
Children International: World poverty facts
Image credit: Google
