Hunger
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Hunger is an issue which many people think lies little importance. Im going to give you a look at World Hunger as a Picture of Poverty, how it affects Third World Nations, and How World Hunger is a disease that is plaguing our society.
“Food is more than a trade commodity,” pleaded Sir John Boydorr in 1946. “It is an essential to life.” The first director-general of the new Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Boydorr fruitlessly proposed plans for a World Food Board to protect nations and people from hunger in the world market system. That market system does not distribute food on the basis of nutritional need. This is one of the most troubling and complex realities of the world hunger problem. During recent famines in Ethiopia, in another example of the workings of the marketplace, foreign food aid begins trucked to famine areas from ships at the docks passed food leaving the famine areas on other vehicles. Merchants were taking food from famine areas to parts of the country where there was no famine. World Hunger and poverty can be seen in many ways. But first lets establish a solid definition of poverty : Poverty is a state in which the ability of individuals or groups to use power to bring about good for themselves, their families, and their community is weakened or blocked. When someone lacks food, this is referred to as material poverty. This sort of poverty can hurt people in many ways, it can hurts peoples self esteem and it can also hurt their outlook on life. Lets say you come home from work to see your family, instead of seeing a family which is happy because it has a roof over its head you come home to see that your children dont have enough food on the table to keep them properly nourished. This hurts familys and tears some of them apart. It is also just a very cruel punishment because after a while of being hungry, you start to starve to death and when you starve, the body just starts to eat itself up to find the nourishment it needs. It can also effect peoples outlook on life and on people in a major way. People who are denied food can start to hate life and everyone around them. Theres also two instincts in life that will always kick in when your hungry: The survival instinct which is to survive no matter what the situation is and the instinct to provide food for your family. I am not a father myself, but I talked to my own dad about this. My own father said that if I was ever starving that he would do anything it takes to make sure that I have the proper nourishment. Im not sure my father would go this far, but I know there are some fathers that would reach a point to where they would even kill for food. This feed the monster we call the “spiral of violence” and helps to encourage it grow. Because we have in the long run, poor people stealing and sometimes killing for no reason. They shouldnt have to steal or kill for food, they should at least have enough food to eat to survive. In fact, there is enough food grown in the world to supply ever man with thirty-six thousand calories a day, this is enough to cause weight gain. In my opinion, I feel some governments want their people to be hungry. Babies are being born every second, the population is starting to get out of control, there are more and more people in the world, I think some governments are trying to use their control on food to control the population by starving their people. There are a few other solutions to World Hunger, for instance, one is Food Security. The opposite of being threatened by hunger is to have food security. The two basic elements of food security are, first, a regular food supply large enough to meet human nutritional needs and, second, access to a supply of food in sufficient quantity at all times to maintain a healthy, active life. The world hunger problem is the absence of food security for 10 percent to 20 percent of the worlds population. Th steady food supply could come from fellow rich countries.
Hunger affects Third World Nations in many ways also. A Third World Nation or Country is a developing country, for example: Ethiopia could be considered a Third World Country. Currently, around fifteen to twenty million people die each year of hunger-related causes, including diseases brought on by lowered resistance due to malnutrition. Over 40 percent of all deaths in poor countries occur among children under five years old. There are seven main reasons why poor countries cant provide food for their people: 1) The demand for exports: Wealthy countries demand products like coffee, sugar, lumber, and grains from poor countries. So a poor countrys economy moves away from providing food and resources for its own people. 2) Government by the elite: Many of the worlds poorest and hungriest nations are controlled by governments consisting of the nations wealthiest members. Government policies tend to favor the interests of the wealthy rather than the poor. 3) Conditions on aid programs: Aid that is offered by wealthy countries to poor countries often comes with strings attached. For example, a wealthy country might give a poor country money, but require the poor country to use the money to build roads, bridges, and airports. This in no way helps the poor country provide food for its people. 4) Debt payments and conditions: Most poor countries are deeply into debt to banks. Paying interest on loans takes money from programs that could help eliminate hunger. 5) Discrimination: Ethnic, religious, and gender discrimination within poor countries also cause poverty. Religious and ethnic minorities are likely to be more impoverished then other groups, and with no money comes no food. 6) Arms sales: Military spending by poor countries is encouraged by rich countries that make and sell arms. Because of this, valuable money which could go to help by food is spent on weapons. The spiral of violence is also fueled by the availability of weapons, which increases repression and adds to poverty and hunger. 7) Abuse of land and other resources: The abuse of a poor countrys resources leads to environmental degradation. Damaged land cannot be effectively farmed for local food production. These are seven reasons which contribute to the hunger in some Third World Countries. So a lot of hunger is caused by the military, so even when countries arent at war, they can cause death just by being selfish. The United states dies offer help to some of these countries , but might wonder how come the us doesnt give more help to these countries? Well, to ally themselves with the interests of the poor, groups such as U.S. AID would have to support those groups throughout the third world that are confronting