Written Statement

World Hunger, although we may not see it going on, is an issue in our world. Hungry is the term you use to describe people who aren't able to afford to buy food necessary to maintain a healthy diet. To do this, you need vitamins like Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Vitamin E; so that you can have healthy bones and cells. This issue has been an ongoing problem, due to poverty in developing countries. When people are struck by poverty, they're not able to afford food for themselves or their family. We know World Hunger is a global issue because in every country you go, there will always be a certain part of town where people aren't able to stabilize a salary, meaning that food is only served when able to be bought. Even in America we have people who are suffering. But since hunger has been a problem, there are many people who want to help. People everyday come and help out at homeless shelters and soup kitchens and donate all they can. There are also sponsored websites that want the help of the community to lower the numbers of people that go to bed without dinner. There's not a single person who should be most concerned about hunger because it should affect everyone in the world, whether they are suffering from it, or helping lower the numbers. The step needed to be taken to help solve world hunger are getting people to help out in their community. It's as easy as spreading thehungersite.com and freerice.com to all their friends and family. You can also volunteer at soup kitchens or homeless shelters. Throughout researching this topic, I learned a lot. Some of the things I learned were that the main reason hunger is a problem is because of poverty. If there wasn't any poverty in our world, there would be no problem with people buying food, therefore people wouldn't be hungry. I also learned that hunger is not just an issue in third world countries; it's happening even here in America. For my part in solving world hunger, I brought awareness to the people here at Peddie and also people from my home in New Hampshire, by making TheHungerSite and FreeRice known. With having more than 500 people seeing my all school emial and over sixty people joining my facebook group, I'm hoping that I have helped save the lives of a few people. I have also talked to Mr. Truslow, the community service organizer, and he has let me know that he is planning on opening the dining hall up for Peddie's neighbors to come in and eat a healthy meal, listen to some live music, and get tutored, for no cost to them. I am very excited for this event and I'm hoping that I can get my classmates to help at this event. My classmates should care about this cause because even if we are not the people starving, we are still a part of the problem because the people that are able to buy food are wasting twenty five percent of it. That's twenty five percent that could have gone to a homeless shelter and fed many people. We need as much help as we can to solve world hunger, whether it's just clicking on the button to donate, or going to volunteer at a soup kitchen, we can all do our part in helping the lives of others.

My Local Solution

For my local solution, I sent out an all school email giving students and faculty background information on my topic and also allowed them to help donate without any cost to them through the two websites I posted earlier. I can't be sure how many people clicked on them, but I posted them on my Facebook group about World Hunger, which currently has 66 members.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) What kind of people are considered hungry?
- Anyone who is malnourished or can't afford to eat is considered hungry.

2) How many people in the world are hungry?
- Last recorded in 2009, there are over 1.02 billion people in our world that are hungry.

3) What are some of the things we can do to help lower the number of hungry people?
- There are many websites that allow you to donate money and food, funded by sponsors, meaning it is at no cost to you. You can also donate food on your own to homeless shelters in nearby towns.

4) Why should you donate?
- There are over 10 million people that go to bed without dinner in our country alone, but also as a country, we waste 25% of the food that is produced. By donating leftover food, we can lower 10,000,000 to 7,500,000.

5) How much food does it take to feed a person for a day?
- On FreeRice, sponsors give 400 grams of rice per person for a day.

6) Where are some countries where food is donated?
- Bangladesh, Cambodia, Uganda, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar.

7) How many people die in one day because of hunger?
- Over 25,000 people in the world die everyday due to hunger issues.

8) How much money us donated in America?
- For every 100 dollars earned in the country, 20 cents is donated to aid.

9) What happens if you don't get enough to eat?
- When you don't get the nutrients your body needs, you can get very sick, to the point of death, and as a child, your bodies wont grow or be healthy.

10) Why are people who suffer from hunger more vulnerable to diseases?
- When you don't have the nutrients needed to support a strong, healthy body, antigens are more likely to be able to attack your immune system. If your immune system isn't strong enough, you will pick up diseases a lot easier.

http://www.thp.org/who_we_are/faq
http://www.poverty.com/index.html
http://www.freerice.com/faq.html

Case Study #3

Our world’s hunger problem is not just in the third world countries. There are many people in America that can’t afford food either. In fact, although they might not admit it, about thirteen million children in America go to bed hungry because their families couldn’t afford to eat dinner that night.6 Hunger may not seem like an issue in America but this is because most families don’t show this. George McGovern says, "To admit the existence of hunger in America is to confess that we have failed in meeting the most sensitive and painful of human needs.”7

6 http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1210-22.htm
7 http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1210-22.htm

Case Study #2

Poverty is a huge contributor to world hunger. When people can’t afford to pay for food, they can’t have dinner that night. Without money, there is no food. There are so many reasons how poverty is associated with hunger. Some include, land rights and ownership, diversion of land use to non-productive use, increasing emphasis on export-oriented agriculture, inefficient agricultural practices, war, famine, drought, over-fishing, poor crop yield, lack of democracy and rights, and more.4 Studies show that people are not hungry because lack of food, but because they can’t afford food. Ross Copeland believes that “[A]ccess to food and other resources is not a matter of availability, but rather of ability to pay. Put bluntly, those with the most money command the most resources, whilst those with little or no money go hungry.”5

4 http://www.globalissues.org/article/7/causes-of-hunger-are-related-to-poverty
5 http://www.globalissues.org/article/8/solving-world-hunger-means-solving-world-poverty

Case Study #1

Due to the higher food prices, going through a war, experiencing drought, and having political instability are all reasons why our world is going through hunger.1 According to the UN, over one billion people today are hungry, which is one in every six people; and the rates are growing higher every day.2 John Robbins says that “Genetically engineered crops were created not because they're productive but because they're patentable. Their economic value is oriented not toward helping subsistence farmers to feed themselves but toward feeding more livestock for the already overfed rich.”3

1 http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/one-billion-go-hungry-socialism-is-better-than-capitalism/
2 http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/one-billion-go-hungry-socialism-is-better-than-capitalism/
3 http://www.globalissues.org/article/190/ge-technologies-will-solve-world-hunger

Article Summaries

Summary:
Wal-Mart is doing their part in stopping World Hunger but donating 1.1 billion pounds of food and $250 million to buy refrigerated trucks to distribute food to the hungry children during summer when they don’t have the privilege of getting Government paid food from their schools.
Title:
Wal-Mart to Stop World Hunger
Author:
John Feeney
Date Published:
May 12th, 2010
Source:
Gather News
Web Link:
http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978232928




Summary:
Representatives are coming to Dublin to meet with the UN and discuss Hunger issues. They want to reduce the number of people who are suffering from hunger. They plan on teaming up with the U.S. to do this.
Title:
Dublin hosts global hunger conference
Author:
Alison Healey
Date Published:
May 17, 2010
Source:
Irish Times
Web Link:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0517/breaking54.html




Summary:
The U.S. and many other countries launched a multibillion dollar fund to stop World Hunger.
Title:
Wealthy Nations Launch Fund Against World Hunger
Author:
Karin Zeitvogel
Date Published:
April 22nd, 2010
Source:
AFP
Web Link:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jk-grjz95pc__4C-6a4ixtNoKBxw




Summary:
This article has a lot of background information on Haiti and also information about the earthquake. Then it talks about the after effects of the disaster, one being Hunger.
Title:
Haiti News – Breaking World Haiti News
Author:
Unknown
Date Published:
April 13th, 2010
Source:
New York Times
Web Link:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/haiti/index.html?scp=3&sq=world%20hunger%20haiti&st=cse




Summary:
A bunch of Elementary School kids are making bowls to help out with World Hunger. They will have a bread and soup luncheon to raise money and all proceeds will go to the Empty Bowls Project to help stop world hunger.
Title
Bowl-ing For Charity
Author:
Jessica Stephen
Date Published:
May 17, 2010
Source:
Kenosha News
Web Link:
http://www.kenoshanews.com/news/bowling_for_charity_7953542.html

Multimedia Resource List

What happens to someone who is malnourished:
http://kidshealth.org/teen/food_fitness/nutrition/hunger.html#

What Vitamins you need to have a healthy diet:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/vitamins/

Why People are Hungry:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Democracy/MillionairesorHungry.html

Sleep affect with hunger:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17687837

Background information on malnutrition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition

How malnutrition affects you:
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Malnutrition-Affects-You&id=284001

What is malnutrition:
http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/feeding/hunger.html

Malnutrition in third world countries:
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1405

How hunger affects people:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/04/28/hunger_affects_us_all/

Real Life World Hunger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRSCynTsWc

More and more people are going hungry:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/01/28/goodman.spain.un.hunger.cnn?iref=videosearch

Extreme hunger: visuals and facts:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1156924/the_world_hunger_problem_facts_figures_statistics/

United Nations Global Ambassador on World Hunger:
http://www.researchchannel.org/asx/uva_nm_worhun_wm9.asx

World Hunger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOC7EnqgMVs

Information on Hunger and Nutrition

There are ten minutes left of your class before lunch and everyone is begging the teacher to let the class out early because you are starving. But are you really starving? Hunger is our body’s way of telling us that it needs food. When your body feels that it has had enough to supply a sufficient amount of energy, it stops sending your brain the message that you are hungry. But there are people in our world who do not get the opportunity to have that feeling of being full. These people live day by day, hoping they can afford enough food for their family. In America, we take for granted our great supply of food that is offered to us, but do we think about when the next time we might eat is? We have no worries when it comes to our food, therefore, because of the health issues our world deals with today, we as a community need to come together and secure a balanced diet for the rest of the world. When people are not getting the sufficient amounts of nutrition daily, they are considered to have malnutrition. This means that their bodies will not grow or be healthy, which ultimately can cause mental and physical health. If the situation is severe enough, it can lead to death. People with malnutrition are typically from poor countries, because they cannot afford the foods that create a balanced diet. Because nutrients are needed for a healthy growth, young children are usually affected the most by malnutrition. Every year, fifteen million children will die from malnutrition. This is something that our community can easily fix. People who are malnourished also become unable to produce antibodies, which protect them from Typhoid and Diphtheria. So, the diseases are obtained easier, and are harder to fight. Hunger is actually obtained by not being able to afford the food. There might be plenty in the area, but poverty stricken families are not able to pay for the food that is available to them for purchase. It is a vicious cycle in which people get sick from being malnourished, they are unable to go to work because they are sick, and they bring home no money for the family to buy food. The cycle goes on and on until eventually if it gets too severe, they will die. While prices go up, it does not make it any easier on these extremely poor families to buy food. Most families survive on bread, since it is cheap. But bread only has very little amounts of calcium and iron, which is nothing near the vitamins you need to have a healthy body. Some of the Vitamins you need are Vitamin A, Folate/Vitamin B6/ Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, and Vitamin K. You can find these in Fruits, Vegetables, meat, dairy, fish, nuts, and spinach. Being healthy can be easy if you have the right Vitamins. As a community we need to help the other people in our world to become healthy.

Thesis Statement

Because of the health issues our world deals with today, we as a community need to come together and secure a balanced diet for the rest of the world.

Meghan's Global Issue Project