Facts & Figures
A Global Crisis
Hunger kills. It is the number one contributor to high mortality rates around the world. The human toll is staggering: each year, more people die from hunger and related diseases than from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined, according to the World Food Programme. Every five seconds a child dies because of hunger and related causes. (The State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO)
What is Hunger?
To alleviate the impact of the global food crisis we must understand and address the different definitions and manifestations of “hunger.”
Physical State
Hunger in the physical sense of having an empty stomach has been defined as the “weakened, disordered condition brought about by a prolonged lack of food.” (Report of the President’s Task Force on Food Assistance, 1984)
This is the hunger that we all experience at least occasionally when we’ve gone without food for too long; it’s the message our bodies send to let us know that we’re not providing the resources needed to function properly. It is a symptom of deprivation, not the deprivation itself. For people who have immediate hunger pangs, food banks serve as a critical resource in many communities by supplying quality food every day for distribution through feeding programs such as soup kitchens, school lunches and after-school programs.
Food Insecurity
“Food insecure” describes a sociological state when “someone cannot obtain an adequate amount of food, even if the shortage is not prolonged enough to cause health problems. It is the experience of being unsatisfied, of not getting enough to eat.” (Report of the President’s Task Force on Food Assistance, 1984)
Essentially, food security describes the general availability of food and people’s access to it. Households can be described as food insecure and so can nations. Food insecurity is a worldwide problem, even in developed countries.
- In 2007, 36.2 million people in the United States lived in food-insecure households, including 12.4 million children. Of these individuals, 8.2 million adults and 3.7 million children lived in households with very low food security. (USDA/ERS)
- More than 700,000 hungry Canadians receive food from food banks every month. (Food Banks Canada)
Ending food insecurity requires everyone to get involved. Governments, businesses, individuals and nonprofits—including food banks—all have important roles to play in creating solutions. Food banks serve as a bridge between the immediate needs of those who are hungry and food insecure today and longer-term solutions. For example, many food banks not only distribute food, but they also provide training, connect recipients with social programs and act as a focal point for community development initiatives.
Malnutrition
Even if their stomachs are not empty, people may suffer from malnutrition, which is an “impairment of physical and/or mental health resulting from a failure to fulfill nutrient requirements. Malnutrition may result from consuming too little food, a shortage of key nutrients, or impaired absorption or metabolism due to disease.” (USAID)
This is the kind of hunger that is most associated with the developing world, where people simply do not have enough food to eat. According to the latest Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics, there are more than 1 billion undernourished people in the world—more than the combined populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union. Almost one person in every six does not get enough food to be healthy.
Here’s where the world’s undernourished people live:
- 642 million in Asia and the Pacific
- 265 million in Sub-Saharan Africa
- 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean
- 42 million in the Near East and North Africa.
Some 907 million undernourished people live in developing countries, and 65 percent of the world's undernourished are located in just seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
- An estimated 146 million children in developing countries are underweight as the result of acute or chronic hunger. That means 25 percent of all hungry people are children. Too often, child hunger is inherited: up to 17 million children are born underweight each year because their mothers were undernourished before and during pregnancy. (The State of the World's Children, UNICEF)
- More than 60 percent of the world’s chronically hungry people are women. (The State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO)
Malnutrition is the lack of necessary calories (energy), protein or micronutrients. A deficiency in even a single nutrient can have a catastrophic effect on a person’s health.
- Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide, affecting an estimated 2 billion people. Eradicating iron deficiency can improve national productivity levels by as much as 20 percent. (World Health Organization)
- Approximately 50 per cent of pregnant women in developing countries are iron deficient, and as a result about 315 million women die annually from a hemorrhage during childbirth. (UNICEF)
- Vitamin A deficiency affects approximately 25 percent of the developing world’s pre-schoolers. It is associated with blindness, susceptibility to disease and higher mortality rates. It leads to the death of approximately 1 million to 3 million children each year. (UN Standing Committee on Nutrition)
To combat this type of hunger, food banks are working to provide food that is highly nutritious and culturally appropriate to people in need.
GFN At Work
The Global FoodBanking Network’s mission is to alleviate world hunger. We do this by supporting food banks and food bank networks where they exist and working collaboratively to create them in communities where they are needed.
