FrontlineChpt3 - Chapter 3 understanding nderstanding...

knowledge to combat hunger
Chapter 3
understanding
malnutrition:
68 Frontline Issues in Nutrition Assistance

T
It is tempting to see hunger as strictly an issue of
quantity. People who are hungry don’t have enough food,
so let’s get them more to eat, right?
Margaret W. Nea
The solution isn’t always that simple. It is important to understand that the
quality of food also matters. Human health depends on an adequate supply
of vitamins and minerals. Food that lacks nutritional value may quiet the
pangs of hunger and provide temporary relief, but over the long term not
getting adequate amounts of nutritious food has serious health consequences.
Malnutrition results when there is an imbalance between what the body
needs to maintain health and the intake of nutrients to meet those needs.
In the developing world, more than 800 million people remain food
insecure, meaning they do not get a suffi cient amount of calories to meet the
basic physical requirements for a healthy, active life. 1 These are the hungry
we recognize from television and newspaper photographs—bloated-bellied
children suffering from a lack of protein, or emaciated rail-thin mothers and
fathers. These images are how most people see the problem of “world hunger.”
But there are also the hidden hungry, an additional 1.2 billion people who
suffer from chronic vitamin and mineral deficiencies (the 800 million cited
above are also vitamin and mineral deficient). They actually get enough calo-
ries to survive from day to day, 2 so they are not counted as starving. Enough
food to survive, but not enough to thrive: the hidden hungry may not look
the worse for wear, but their lack of essential nutrients has profound effects on
their health and quality of life.
Lacking essential vitamins and minerals, the body cannot produce the
enzymes, hormones and other substances it needs to function normally.
Deficits lead to poor health and impaired mental functioning. Severe deficits
can even cause death.
Effective nutrition assistance depends on much more than simply the quan-
tity of food delivered. In this chapter, we examine the relationship between
hunger and nutrition. Understanding the nutritional status of hungry people
creates a foundation for improving frontline responses to hunger, both in the
developing world and the United States.
Hunger Report 2006 69

chapter 3 malnutrition
Types of Hunger
• Chronic hunger – occurs
when people do not get
sufficient nutrition (i.e.,
they suffer from under-
nourishment but are not
starving) throughout the
year or on a seasonal
basis. Chronic hunger
results in children who
suffer from chronic
undernutrition (stunting)
and high rates of child
mortality due to hunger-
related diseases.
• Acute hunger – occurs
when people become
severely undernourished,
often as a consequence
of a sudden shock or
emergency. Acute hunger
is reflected in acute under-
nutrition (wasting) and
starvation.