Food Insecurity: More than Hunger

During a child's growth phase, a proper diet is important to positively affect their physical and intellectual well-being.  Unfortunately, many of our children around the world lack a good diet, good care, and optimal health and wellness practices.

Malnutrition is the physical result of hunger, a devastating disease of epidemic dimensions suffered by 50.2 million children under five years of age worldwide, due to food shortages or improper diet. Each year, it causes the death of more than 3.1 million children. These deaths could be prevented with proper nutritional treatment.

Action Against Hunger, NGO, defines the word "hunger" as the general state of lack of food and food insecurity that affects all population groups. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), hunger becomes chronic when the person does not consume a sufficient amount of calories (food energy) on a regular basis to lead a normal, active, and healthy life.

In 2020, almost all low- and middle-income countries were affected by economic downturns. The increase in the number of undernourished was more than five times higher than the largest increase in undernourishment recorded in the last two decades. And, the weakening of the economy was twice as pronounced as any other recorded before in that period. The situation is worrying!

As if that were not enough, the COVID-19 pandemic is just the tip of the iceberg. The pandemic has highlighted the worldwide issues that have been expressed through UNICEF in recent years as a result of conflicts, variability in weather conditions, and slowdowns and weaknesses in the economy. These main factors occur with increasing frequency in underdeveloped countries with interactions that undermine food security and nutrition.