Hunger And Food Insecurity

Hunger and Food insecurity is a prevalent social issue that is not only evident throughout the United States of America, but specifically in the streets of San Francisco. Over the past few years, the City has had a high demand on food and nutrition services. According to the San Francisco Food Bank, “[it is estimated] that 1 in 5 adults in San Francisco struggle each day to feed themselves and their families” (International Urban Food Network). This can lead to many negative health issues and can further become a nationwide epidemic. Although experiencing hunger is not physically felt by everyone, it has somehow impacted every individual in San Francisco. Hunger and food insecurity is an issue that

The day before Thanksgiving I left work thinking about all the things I still needed to do for the holiday such as picking up take-out so I wouldn’t have to cook anything that night, making one more trip to the store, and wondering if I should buy another dessert. It started raining, and I was hoping it would stop before I had to park at the grocery store, and the store wouldn’t be too crowded. When I got to my first destination of the night, my thoughts stopped, and I realized that my worries were pretty superficial. I had just arrived for my volunteer shift at the food pantry at Rosie’s Place, a Shelter and resource center for women in Boston. There I remembered just what being thankful was all about. The women who were picking up their groceries that night didn’t have my superficial worries, they had to worry about how to make food stretch from one check to the next. They had to worry about carrying multiple heavy bags of food in the rain, on a crowed bus and through neighborhoods that are not safe in the daylight, never mind at night. These women and their families are among the many in the country that are food insecure.

With rises in the cost of attendance and decreased state-funding throughout American universities, the cliché of the “broke and starving” college student has never been more relevant. Despite its humorous origins, this cliché is the lived reality for the 42% of students in the University of California (UC) system who face constant food insecurity (Martinez et al. 2016). At a large research institution like UC San Diego, students’ main priority is to excel academically and to obtain a degree. However, when students are unable to satisfy their basic physiological needs, not only are they affected academically, but also socially, physically, and mentally. This project attempts to address the problem of food insecurity beyond its superficial nature,

In many parts of the world people go hungry every day and they don 't have the means to feed themselves or the security that they will eat again. The lands no longer bear fruit and cannot provide for those who counted on them to both survive and make a living. One such example is Ethiopia in Africa, and it is a hot zone of the hunger epidemic. Poor nutrition causes nearly half of the deaths in children under 5 ( 3.1 million children each year), as well as on a lesser note 1 in 4 of the world 's children have their growth stunted because of hunger. Meanwhile agriculture is a staple in most economies and Ethiopia is without that suffering leaving it with no food security. Ethiopia is in dire need of help with its hunger

Throughout the history of farming, the goal was simple, to provide enough food for everyone. Now the world produces enough food for every single human being on this planet of about 2700 calorie diet a day, which is more than enough for average people. But it’s kind of ironic world hunger still exist and is the leading cause of deaths per year. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 805 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world were suffering from chronic undernourishment. World hunger doesn’t just kill people, it’s linked to diseases, physiological issues and poverty as well. That’s about 24,000 people dying a day. But what does hunger mean? Hunger is a term which has three different meanings according Oxford English Dictionary, but world hunger means the want or scarcity of food in a country.

Hunger impacts 48.1 million Americans; 46.7 million of them live in poverty. According to Feeding America, seventy percent of their clients are at one hundred percent below the federal poverty line (“Hunger and Poverty Facts”, 2016). Poverty is the social factor, which creates and sustains hunger. You may be wondering that if poverty creates hunger, what creates poverty? Economics, politics, and capitalism all keep the impoverished from escaping lower class, and in turn, the inability to escape hunger.

According to recent statistics from the United Nations World Food Program, 795 million people across the globe, suffer from the effects of being undernourished ("Food Program," 2015, para. 1). Both hunger and malnutrition serve to be the number one risk to health and well-being, more so than Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria combined ("Food Program," 2015, para. 1). Although the planet produces enough food to feed everyone (Wright & Boorse, 2014), hunger, malnutrition, and famine continue to adversely affect people in both developed and developing nations. Children are particularly susceptible to the ill effects of hunger and malnutrition as stunting or growth failure, aside for disease, is the leading cause of abnormal growth development in children ("Stunting," n.d.).

Many Americans associate hunger with under developed countries and are unaware that many of their neighbors lack food. Television programming is often saturated with commercials depicting hungry children in foreign countries. After all, the United States is considered one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world, how can hunger possibly be a social problem? In addition, the federal government provides food subsidies to low-income families, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Women, Infants, Children (WIC), Summer Food Service Program(SFSP) and the National School Lunch Program also known as NSLP (Child nutrition, 2017). There are also several non- profit organizations that offer free food and have onsite food banks (Northwest Assistance, n.d.). Yet, the previously referenced programs have not been successful in eliminating hunger or food insecurity.

Throughout the research report, students studied the level of satisfaction with life for high school students and analyzed if food is important in overall happiness. The purpose is determine if there is a correlation between eating habits and a person’s level of happiness. Over 900 high school students were surveyed for this study. 538 females participated and 364 males took the happiness survey. Over half of the people surveyed were categorized as happy. The happiest people eat healthier foods, and more meals throughout the day regardless of where they eat.

Food and hunger are issues that have been impacted by population growth, but some countries have been affected more than others. This will be explained through the thoughts of Robbins and other individuals. According to Robbins and Thomas Malthus, both agree that an increase in population will put pressure on the resources. As younger generations become older, they need more food to survive, so they are consuming more, putting pressure on the available resources. In some areas of the world, they were experiencing high levels of infant mortality rates, due to suffering from malnutrition. Unfortunately, due to the symptoms they had, such as "headaches, tremors, weakness, irritability" (Robbins, 2010: 170) they would seek doctors for medicinal treatments and not nutrients. This was seen in places such as it was seen in Brazil, where "approximately 1 million children younger than five years of age die each year" (Robbins, 2010: 168). These numbers are extremely high and are a cry for help, if only individuals knew that they needed food and water and not medicine, the mortality rates would not be so high. Although most individuals can agree that a growing population can cause food shortages, some researchers believed that society did not have to worry about this issue. This was because individuals were inventing new and better things to aid in food production. Technology advances were able to develop improved fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, allow food to be refrigerated,

As of today, the twenty-first-century, American society is experiencing a problematic topic that many individuals are not fully aware of or just ignore the issue. America is currently confronting hunger and poverty. Yes, America, the so-called “land of opportunity” is dealing with this chaos. The land where people are equal and can be able to attain anything the person desires is now the land where many individuals seek help. This problem has been around the United States for decades, but the American community still manages to neglect for a solution. Throughout time the United States seems to be satisfied with other topics, but many do not know that hunger and poverty is being discrete and is increasing over time. The average poverty rate in America is 14.5% the current rate in America is 13.5%. A difference of exactly 1%, a difference that is too low and has to be modified to a higher percentage. After giving statics, the essential question is asked; can American society end hunger and poverty?

The U.N. has been trying to eradicate world hunger and poverty since its inception in 1945. The answer to these issues have been Article 25 and the Millennium goals, but what are they? Article 25 is the set of human rights that govern the right to adequate living. It states everyone has the right to adequate health, shelter and general life, for them and their family. It also states “motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance.” The Millennium goals are goals that the UN have set to further improve human rights around the world in the 21st century. These goals include the eradication of world hunger, promote gender equality and provide free education for all.

There are people all across the world who are struggling with hunger.  Approximately seven hundred and ninety five million people suffer from this issue.  This is approximately one-ninth of the entire world’s population that is directly affected by hunger.  These people are in third world countries, but there are also people in developed countries like the United States that are going hungry as well. Initially, when most people think about someone that is starving, they visualize someone who is very skinny with their bones almost visible just under the skin.  Although this visual image is sometimes accurate, there are people who are undernourished that do not fit this stereotype.  Furthermore, hunger can cause many health concerns that are not as easy to identify by just looking at an individual.  Hunger is a major problem throughout the world and some of its long term effects include stunted growth,  development of poor cognitive abilities, and poor overall health.  These effects are devastating and often times irreversible.

Picture this, a single man/woman, sitting on the streets, thinking about all they have suffered in life, asking why? Why me? What have I ever done wrong? Picture a small child, trying to remain brave, feeling to cry and just squeeze their parent’s hand, making sure everything will be okay and that the nightmare ends soon. The kids, extremely hungry, stomachs rumbling and growling, still trying not to make their parents lose even more. The family was struggling and they felt like giving up right away, yet, they still had a sliver of hope to end the terror of poverty.

The rise in food prices has made it difficult for the average Joe to survive with their weekly income. Do you know what I can’t believe? Coca Cola is cheaper than milk! MILK! Milk is calcium which we need to grow big and strong as the television ads tell me. Firstly, foods prices are ridiculous, secondly, electricity bills are too expensive. But the most important part of poverty is, the number of homeless people living on the street is dramatically increasing each year! Personally, I think these are main factors why we should fix poverty in New Zealand.