World Hunger Facts 2008

World Hunger Education Service

Hunger is a term which has three meanings (Oxford English Dictionary 1971)

• the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite. Also the exhausted condition caused by want of food

• the want or scarcity of food in a country

• a strong desire or craving

World hunger refers to the second definition, aggregated to the world level. The related technical term (in this case operationalized in medicine)  is malnutrition.¹ 

Malnutrition is a general term that indicates a lack of some or all nutritional elements necessary for human health (Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia).

There are two basic types of malnutrition. The first and most important is protein-energy malnutrition--the lack of enough protein (from meat and other sources) and food that provides energy (measured in calories) which all of the basic food groups provide. This is the type of malnutrition that is referred to when world hunger is discussed.  The second type of malnutrition, also very important, is micronutrient (vitamin and mineral) deficiency. This is not the type of malnutrition that is referred to when world hunger is discussed, though it is certainly very important. 

[Recently there has also been a move to include obesity as a third form of malnutrition. Considering obesity as malnutrition expands the previous usual meaning of the term which referred to poor nutrition due to lack of food inputs.² It is poor nutrition, but it is certainly not typically due to a lack of calories, but rather too many (although poor food choices, often due to poverty, are part of the problem). Obesity will not be considered here, although obesity is certainly a health problem and is increasingly considered as a type of malnutrition.]

Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) is the most lethal form of malnutrition/hunger. It is basically a lack of calories and protein. Food is converted into energy by humans, and the energy contained in food is measured by calories.  Protein is necessary for key body functions including provision of essential amino acids and  development and maintenance of muscles.

No one really knows how many people are malnourished. The statistic most frequently cited is that of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which measures 'undernutrition'. The most recent estimate (2006) of the FAO says that 854 million people worldwide are undernourished. This is 12.6 percent of the estimated world population of 6.6 billion. Most of the undernourished--820 million--are in developing countries.  The FAO estimate is based on statistical aggregates.  It looks at a country's income level and income distribution and uses this information to estimate how many people receive such a low level of income that they are malnourished.  It is   not an estimate based on seeing to what extent actual people are malnourished and projecting from there (as would be done by survey sampling). [It has been argued that the FAO approach is not sufficient to give accurate estimates of malnutrition (Poverty and Undernutrition  p. 298 by Peter Svedberg).]

Undernutrition is a relative new concept, but is increasingly used.  It should be taken as basically equivalent to malnutrition.  (It should be said as an aside, that the idea of undernourishment,  its relationship to malnutrition, and the reasons for its emergence as a concept is not clear to Hunger Notes.)

Children are the most visible victims of undernutrition.  Children who are poorly nourished suffer up to 160 days of illness each year. Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year--five million deaths.  Undernutrition magnifies the effect of every disease, including measles and malaria. The estimated proportions of deaths in which undernutrition is an underlying cause are roughly similar for diarrhea (61%), malaria (57%), pneumonia (52%), and measles (45%) (Black 2003, Bryce 2005). Malnutrition can also be caused by diseases, such as the diseases that cause diarrhea, by reducing the body's ability to convert food into usable nutrients.

According to the most recent estimate that Hunger Notes could find, malnutrition, as measured by stunting, affects 32.5 percent of children in developing countries--one of three (de Onis 2000). Geographically, more than 70 percent of malnourished children live in Asia, 26 percent in Africa and 4 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. In many cases, their plight began even before birth with a malnourished mother. Under-nutrition among pregnant women in developing countries leads to 1 out of 6 infants born with low birth weight. This is not only a risk factor for neonatal deaths, but also causes learning disabilities, mental, retardation, poor health, blindness and premature death.

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9).  The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.

Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The causes of poverty include poor people's lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself. As of 2008 (2004 statistics), the World Bank has estimated that there were an estimated 982 million poor people in developing countries who live on $1 a day or less (World Bank, Understanding Poverty, Chen 2004). This compares to the FAO estimate of  850 million undernourished people.  Extreme poverty remains an alarming problem in the world’s developing regions, despite the advances made in the 1990s till now, which reduced "dollar a day" poverty from (an estimated) 1.23 billion people to 982 million in 2004, a reduction of 20 percent over the period. Progress in poverty reduction has been concentrated in Asia, and especially, East Asia, with the major improvement occurring in China. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people in extreme poverty has increased.

Conflict as a cause of hunger and poverty. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that as of December 2006, there were  at least 22.7 million displaced, including 9.9 million refugees and 12.8 million internally displaced persons (UNHCR 2007). (Refugees flee to another country while internally displaced people move to another area of their own country.) Most people become refugees or are internally displaced as a result of conflict, though there are also natural causes such as drought, earthquakes, and flooding. In the early stages of refugee emergencies, malnutrition runs rampant, exponentially increasing the risk of disease and death (World Health Organization 2003). But, important and (relatively) visible though it is, conflict is less important as poverty as a cause of hunger. (Using the statistics above 798 million people suffer from chronic hunger while 22.7 million people are displaced.)

Hunger is also a cause of poverty. By causing poor health, low levels of energy, and even mental impairment, hunger can lead to even greater poverty by reducing people's ability to work and learn. [Expand with citations]

Progress in reducing the number of hungry people. The target set at the 1996 World Food Summit was to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015 from their number in 1990-92. (FAO uses three year averages in its calculation of undernourished people.) The (estimated) number of undernourished people in developing countries  was 824 million in 1990-92. In 2000-02, the number had declined only slightly to  820 million (854 million worldwide including countries in transition--formerly part of the Soviet bloc--and developed countries [FAO 2006])

So, overall,  the world is not making progress toward the world food summit goal, although there has been progress in Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. [Mention Millennium development goals.]

Micronutrients  Quite a few  trace elements or micronutrients--vitamins and minerals--are important for health. 1 out of 3 people in developing countries are affected by vitamin and mineral deficiencies, according to the World Health Organization. Three--perhaps the most important in terms of current health consequences for poor people in developing countries--are:

Vitamin A Vitamin A deficiency  can cause night blindness and reduces the body's resistance to disease. In children Vitamin A deficiency can also cause growth retardation. Between 100 and 140 million children are vitamin A deficient. An estimated 250,000 to 500 000 vitamin A-deficient children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight. (World Health Organization)

Iron Iron deficiency is a principal cause of anemia. Two billion people—over 30 percent of the world’s population—are anemic, mainly due to iron deficiency, and, in developing countries, frequently exacerbated by malaria and worm infections. For children, health consequences include premature birth, low birth weight, infections, and elevated risk of death. Later, physical and cognitive development are impaired, resulting in lowered school performance. For pregnant women, anemia contributes to 20 percent of all maternal deaths (World Health Organization).

Iodine Iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) jeopardize children’s mental health– often their very lives. Serious iodine deficiency during pregnancy may result in stillbirths, abortions and congenital abnormalities such as cretinism, a grave, irreversible form of mental retardation that affects people living in iodine-deficient areas of Africa and Asia. IDD also causes mental impairment that lowers intellectual prowess at home, at school, and at work. IDD affects over 740 million people, 13 percent of the world’s population. Fifty million people have some degree of mental impairment caused by IDD (World Health Organization).

(UpdatedMarch 1, 2008)

Footnotes

1. The relation between hunger, malnutrition, and other terms such as undernutrition is not 'perfectly clear,' so we have attempted to spell them out briefly in "World Hunger Facts."

2. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary (1971 edition) has 'insufficient nutrition' as the only meaning for malnutrition.

3. The table  used to calculate this number.

Sources: For columns 1 and 2, we have used World Bank (regional) poverty figures given at  http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/jsp/index.jsp (accessed January 24, 2008).  For population figures we have used World Bank figures for the same regions given at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/0,,contentMDK:20394872~pagePK:64133150~piPK:64133175~theSitePK:239419,00.html (accessed January 24, 2008).

Bibliography

Oxford University Press. 1971. Oxford English Dictionary. Definition for malnutrition.

Black RE, Morris SS, Bryce J. "Where and why are 10 million children dying every year?" Lancet. 2003 Jun 28;361(9376):2226-34.

Jennifer Bryce, Cynthia Boschi-Pinto, Kenji Shibuya, Robert E. Black, and the WHO Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group. 2005. "WHO estimates of the causes of death in children." Lancet ; 365: 1147–52.

Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion.  June 2004. "How have the world’s poorest fared since the early 1980s?" World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3341 Washington: World Bank. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2004/07/22/000112742_20040722172047/Rendered/PDF/wps3341.pdf

de Onis, Mercedes, Edward A. Frongillo and Monika Blossner. 2000. "Is malnutrition declining? An analysis of changes in levels of child malnutrition since 1980." Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2000, 78: 1222–1233.

Food and Agriculture Organization, International Fund for Agricultural Development, World Food Program. 2002 "Reducing Poverty and Hunger, the Critical Role of Financing for Food, Agriculture, and Rural Development."

Food and Agriculture Organization. 2006. State of World Food Insecurity 2006

Svedberg, Peter. 2000. Poverty and Undernutrition  p. 298

United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees. 2007.  Statistical Yearbook 2006 "Main Findings"

World Bank.  Understanding Poverty website  Accessed February 3, 2008

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