We are Hungery

Meet Anna. Anna is a 13 year old girl who is normal. She wakes up, goes to school, has friends, and her life is normal. But sad truth is her life looks normal. Actually, when Anna goes home, she is never sure if there will be food on the table, because her mom is poor, and her dad is dead. Tonight, mom decided to go have a drink instead of feed her children. Looks like Anna will go to bed on an empty stomach tonight. Maybe tomorrow, she tells herself, maybe tomorrow I will have some food.

Stories like this are not unheard of. As a matter of fact, they are pretty understandable. Here are some stone cold facts about hunger in America. There are 36.2 million americans live in a home that is considered to be food insecure. That is more than four times the population of New York City, and we all know, thats a very big city. Out of those 36.2 million, 23.8 million are adults. Therefore, hunger affects more than 10.6% of the adults in the United States. If you think about that for a second, if you look at 10 adults in one day, one of them is not getting enough food. Children on the other hand, is a different story. 12.4 million children in the United States are affected by hunger. That statistic means that almost 17% of children are in need of food. Those are the simple facts about hunger in the United States. But what exactly is hunger?

Hunger is defined as a feeling experienced when one has a desire to eat. Unfortunatly, those statistics I just shared with you is not talking about this uncomfortable feeling. I am talking about the kind of hunger when you are in serious pain. Your stomach feels like it is a black hole with absolutly nothing in it, but the sad feeling that maybe nothing will ever fill that void. Hunger like this is a very serious issue, and is more commonly associated with the term malnutrition. Malnutritionis the insufficient, excessive or imbalanced consumption of nutrients. Basically, that means, that you are not getting enough fuel for your body to perform the way it needs to. That sounds like a bunch of random facts, so why should I care. I mean besides the fact that humans are in pain, what is so bad about hunger?

Hunger can be a serious health issue when it gets out of hand. The World Health Organization cites hunger as the gravest single threat to the world's public health. Thats right, its not cancer, AIDS, its hunger that causes the biggest threat, its hunger. Malnutrition is, by far, the biggest contributor to death in children, present in half of all cases. Malnutrition is the most common preventable cause of mental impairment. Because of all of these incredible facts about how hunger is causing all of these problems, many health officials believe that improving nutrition is the most effective form of aid.

http://www.frac.org/html/hunger_index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition

http://www.bread.org/learn/hunger-basics/hunger-facts-domestic.html

http://www.bread.org/learn/hunger-basics/hunger-facts-international.html

http://sowhatcanido.blogspot.com/2005/01/fight-hunger-in-united-states.html