What did you learn about dietary choices from using the footprint calculator? Now imagine that you could translate what you learned into an effective societal policy on food- what would it be? And how would this policy effect the need to alleviate world hunger?
925 million people on earth do not have enough to eat according to the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization]. That's almost 1 in 7 inhabitants of our planet!
Food & Hunger >
WORLD CHILD HUNGER FACTS
Nutritious foods in adequate amounts are essential for everyone but particularly for children. In early childhood, adequate nutrition can ensure healthy growth, proper organ formation and function, a strong immune system, and neurological and cognitive development. Nutrition, too, has increasingly been recognized as a basic pillar for social and economic development. Well-nourished people can learn new skills, think critically and contribute to their communities. Improving child nutrition impacts global, national and regional child survival, primary education, women’s empowerment, and maternal and child health rates.
On the flip side, child malnutrition hurts cognitive function and contributes to poverty by impeding people’s ability to lead productive lives. Poverty is the leading cause of hunger, but poverty also results from hunger. In spite of the importance of childhood nutrition and significant progress in the last 25 years, global childhood hunger is still rampant.
This post is incredibly informative. Nutrition, being recognized as a basic pillar for societal and economic development, is an extremely important aspect in a successful community. Based on personal experiences for example, a lack of proper nutrition affect an entire area in a metropolitan space. Poor, homeless people in the downtown of San Francisco are rendered starving as a result of malnutrition. These people are physically unable to relieve themselves from their horrible social states, relying on fast food at best to nourish themselves. Most are in pain from the pittance of food they receive.This results in a horrible and terrifying example of poor nutrition in underprivileged communities. According to an article on homelessness by the San Francisco chronicle, over of 6,686 people living on the streets are almost starving and sick from a lack of proper nutrition. These statistics are scary, as the number keeps growing as more and more people are driven out of their substandard homes. http://projects.sfchronicle.com/sf-homeless/numbers/
This is very eye opening to see how much food can affect young children. The growth, neurological and developmental effects are highly impacted by what we eat and the effects are higher on young growing children. The article says well nourished people have a higher chance to learn and develop new skills. We need this mostly for the next generation because they are the future of our society and they need to have enough nourishment to succeed and thrive. Malnutrition happens everywhere not just in 3rd world countries but in the places we live in as well. There are many homeless people suffering starvation and hunger everywhere. This is a problem that needs to be looked at and carefully considered.