Hunger and Poverty as Root Causes of Global Issues

Hunger and Its Aspects

Speaking from a comprehensive point of view, the word “hunger” can be described as an uncomfortable sensation produced by the body in response to the need or the desire or the craving to have food. It can also be defined as a state in which the person cannot gain access to adequate food for a long time period. During this time, it is very much likely that nutritional deficiencies may arise. When speaking of it physically, hunger is associated with contractions of the muscles of the stomach. The hormone ghrelin is responsible for very severe contractions, also known as hunger pangs. Ghrelin hormone is also released as a result of low blood sugar levels in the body.

Hunger can have far-reaching consequences not just on the human body, but also on the society as a whole, including globally as well. When talking about hunger on a global platform, it is simply the lack of access or scarcity of food within any country. According to global statistics, about 800 million people (approximately one-ninth of the population) have inadequate access to food. Majorly, the world’s population is presently residing in the developing regions (about 13% of the population are malnourished). Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are from those countries where hunger and malnutrition prevalence rates are very high. Literally speaking, this happens when the citizens of that country just does not have adequate food to eat to support a healthy body or lifestyle. Hunger is one the major reasons for malnutrition and the many illnesses associated with it. Malnutrition, in severe cases, can eventually lead to death – young children are more susceptible to this in comparison with adults. Poverty is the cause of hunger; and hunger then leads to malnutrition. This all forms a part of a vicious cycle.

Hunger not only affects the stomach. After a period of prolonged food deprivation, hunger starts affecting the brain in lots of ways. When the body is not getting the necessary macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) as well as micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), this scarcity can prevent the brain from developing and functioning properly, and the concentration span is significantly reduced too. Social and emotional cognitions are affected too, that interfere with the person’s capacity to read, write, concentration or talk. Lack of vitamin A resulting from hunger can indirectly cause vision to deteriorate as well as being the root cause of many other eyesight problems. The teeth, as well as the gums are also affected and can become damaged due to a deficiency of calcium in the diet. Extreme cases of hunger may possibly target and affect the immune system as well. Once the immune system is not getting its basic and necessary nutrition, it cannot synthesize the important antibodies or blood cells which play a vital role in preventing diseases or infections. This is the main reason why so many people in the developing nations are in a constant tussle to fighting off various diseases, and many die as a result.

As already discussed, being in a state of constant hunger can affect the thinking process and cognitive function. This, in turn, makes it extremely hard for children to study and acquire proper education. So, this may explain why hunger and poverty both related to a lack of access to quality education. This is more common in the developing nations, where episodes of hunger from a young age in children struggle to keep up in schools, and on average, have a lower than normal IQ status (as compared to those children who are nutritionally secure). Hunger & Poverty afflict more than 700 million people (especially children) globally, resulting in various diseases and deaths.

Poverty and Its Aspects

When spoken of generally, poverty is the state in which the basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, health care facilities etc.) of the people residing in a particular country are either not being met at all or the access to these things is inadequate or low in quality. Poverty as defined by The World Bank Organization is as follows: “Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place and across time, and has been described in many ways. Most often, poverty is a situation people want to escape. So poverty is a call to action -- for the poor and the wealthy alike -- a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their communities.”

Poverty is just not restricted to a lack of money. Poverty is also about not able to take part in recreational activities, when you cannot send your child to a daytrip, or when you cannot afford to pay for your medical or electrical expenses. All of these are the costs one has to pay for having to be poor. When one cannot afford to pay for a simple roof over their head, how is it possible that they can afford all these other expenses? When people have to be excluded from the society on account of being poor, or when they have not gained access to proper education, when there is a greater chance of contracting illnesses due to in availability of health facilities, the society suffers. In this way, all the members of the society have to pay the price for the consequences of poverty. The increase in the cost of health care, the system of justice etc. that give support to those residing in poor conditions have an overall effect on the country’s economy. There cannot be one single reason for poverty, as it differs from person to person, as well as from country to country. For instance, the feeling of being poor in Asia might be different from being poor in Canada or Africa. No matter in which country one lives, it can be said for sure that poverty has many social aspects – it is a national as well as a global issue which requires prompt attention and intervention by government regulatory agencies. When a poor person has lack of access to adequate food, nutrition as well as health care facilities, he or she is at a great risk for malnutrition which can progress to worsening conditions and infections if not treated on time.

Relationship between Hunger (malnutrition) and Poverty

There is a complex but a visible relationship between hunger (malnutrition) and poverty. This cycle begins when a member or the family or an individual is not able to acquire adequate food to support his or her health. This causes stress and frustration. This stress-poor nutrition combination opens the gateway to more diseases resulting from malnutrition; these can then become even more challenging to handle. Added to this, the money as well as the time that is required to overcome such critical situation causes a strain on the budget, leaving behind little room and financial aid for health and nutrition. Such a cycle like this keeps on going, with poverty worsening the situation. Families that suffer from hunger and poverty have several restraints that keep them from acquiring access to good health.

All those who suffer from hunger are definitely poor, but it is not certain that each poor person has to be hungry. More than 600 million people around the world survive in a condition of extreme poverty and hunger since they cannot afford quality access to food or proper farming equipment to support their own agriculture. An extreme dimension of poverty is hunger, and is often seen as a severe form of poverty.

Currently, the world has been producing sufficient food stuff to support the global population. However, millions of people are yet not able to acquire adequate access to food. The question then arises that why is hunger still a prevailing problem if the world is producing enough money that could potentially erase hunger? Poverty is the major and most apparent cause of global hunger. Even though there is enough food to provide for the world’s population, a large percentage of the global population live below the poverty line that it becomes impossible for them to afford even basic necessity of living. Due to this, a continuous trap of poverty/hunger ensues which becomes difficult to break. Generally, poor people cannot achieve food for themselves, let alone for their families, which leads to further worsening of health status (malnutrition). This leads to a deteriorating employment status, and causing even more poverty. This is ruining the lives of many people globally – any resolution to hunger must also be a solution to solving poverty then.

Hunger and poverty not only affects the individual, but it has far-reaching consequences for public health status too. According to researchers in Canada, people who belong to poor backgrounds find it difficult to acquire quality access to food that may eventually deteriorate their nutritional and health status. It has been found that people suffering from food insecurity generally have a below optimal nutritional status, and are having lots of macro as well as micronutrient deficiencies. According to studies conducted by Tarsuk and Kirkpatrick, young children that live in food-insecure houses have a lower than normal consumption of milk. There was a low intake of fruits and vegetables among those children between the ages of 1 to 3. Adolescent boys up to the ages of 15 years were particularly found to be having micronutrient deficiencies or inadequacy in their dietary patterns, in addition to having lesser intake of vegetable and fruits as compared to their friends. Diets of adolescent girls who reside in poverty conditions were having dietary patterns deficient in magnesium, vitamin A and protein.

Adults in food-insecure settings consumed less protein, fat and fiber, and, in some cases, followed diets strikingly insufficient in vitamins and minerals. Among food-insecure men between the ages of 31 and 70 and food-insecure women between the ages of 51 and 70, overall caloric intake and meat consumption was also lower. And for most, carbohydrates accounted for a larger slice of their overall diet at the expense of fruit and milk consumption. 'The poor dietary patterns of those in food-insecure households provide a moral imperative for policy responses to address the root causes of this problem in both Canada and the U.S.,' said Kirkpatrick.

Poverty may also imply little or no access to clean water and sanitation, providing an open window for numerous water borne illnesses such as cholera, dysentery, diarrohea etc. All these health problems are the causes of many deaths and annual mortality rates around the globe, especially in children.

Stress is another effect on health that may not initially spring to mind. However there is increasing evidence that the burden and exertions of living on a low income demonstrates itself in biological changes in the body. During times of high stress related which trying to survive on dismal wages, our bodies react by triggering a flood of stress hormones that affect the immune system and cardiovascular system. This enables the human body to deal with immediate threat by increasing the heart rate, redirect blood to our muscles while also heightening anxiety and alertness. Although this is a natural sequence of events that occur in the body, it seems that if it happens too often and for too long it damages health. Symptoms of which include depression, increased susceptibility to infection, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and a greater risk of heart attack and stroke. When you combine the stress associated with living on a low income with a bad diet and poor living conditions, it's no surprise that poor people experience more ill health and die younger than their wealthier counterparts.

The effects of poverty are serious. Children who grow up in poverty suffer more persistent, frequent, and severe health problems than do children who grow up under better financial circumstances. Many infants are born into poverty have a low birth weight, which is associated with many preventable mental and physical disabilities. Not only are these poor infants more likely to be irritable or sickly, they are also more likely to die before their first birthday. Children raised in poverty tend to miss school more often because of illness. These children also have a much higher rate of accidents than do other children, and they are twice as likely to have impaired vision and hearing, iron deficiency anemia, and higher than normal levels of lead in the blood, which can impair brain function. Levels of stress in the family have also been shown to correlate with economic circumstances. Studies during economic recessions indicate that job loss and subsequent poverty are associated with violence in families, including child and elder abuse. Poor families experience much more stress than middle‐class families. Besides financial uncertainty, these families are more likely to be exposed to series of negative events and “bad luck,” including illness, depression, eviction, job loss, criminal victimization, and family death. Parents who experience hard economic times may become excessively punitive and erratic, issuing demands backed by insults, threats, and corporal punishment.

Homelessness, or extreme poverty, carries with it a particularly strong set of risks for families, especially children. Compared to children living in poverty but having homes, homeless children are less likely to receive proper nutrition and immunization. Hence, they experience more health problems. Homeless women experience higher rates of low‐birth‐weight babies, miscarriages, and infant mortality, probably due to not having access to adequate prenatal care for their babies. Homeless families experience even greater life stress than other families, including increased disruption in work, school, family relationships, and friendships. HIV, diarrhoea, tuberculosis and malaria, as well as communicable respiratory diseases such as pneumonia kill the most people. Diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria account for nearly half of all child deaths globally.

Neglected tropical diseases affect over one billion people, almost all in the poorest and most marginalised communities. You may not have heard of diseases such as leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminths and trachoma, but they can cause severe pain and life-long disabilities – and mean enormous productivity losses. However, efforts to tackle them have usually taken a back seat to the bigger killers. The biggest non-communicable killers are maternal and newborn deaths and deaths related to poor nutrition, cardiovascular disease and non-communicable respiratory diseases. How do disease and infection affect economic growth?

Lives lost mean reduced economic productivity as well as personal tragedy. Productivity is further slowed while people are ill or caring for others. There were 1.7 HIV-related deaths in 2007 and 990 thousand deaths from tuberculosis. Most of these were among young people and adults in their most productive years.

In heavily affected countries billions of dollars of economic activity are lost each year as a result of illness and death from HIV, TB and malaria. This can seriously reduce economic growth in countries that are already struggling. Malaria reduces economic growth by 1.3% in heavily affected countries, and costs around $12 billion in lost GDP across Africa. TB costs around 7% of GDP in the worst affected countries. How has the global community responded?

World leaders and international organizations have slowly woken up to the impact of the most prevalent infectious diseases. The World Health Organization has declared TB, HIV and malaria global emergencies. Reducing the spread and treating HIV, TB, malaria, and other diseases is also one of the Millennium Development Goals.

However, as well as tackling specific diseases, it is crucial that leaders also address the underlying causes. It is widely accepted that the key reason for the increase in life expectancy in wealthy countries in the late 19th and early 20th century was less to do with the leaps forward in medical science, and more to do with the arrival of better nutrition, clean water and sanitation. Reducing poverty, improving nutrition and making sure people have access to safe water and sanitation, as well as strengthening national health systems, is of the utmost importance. Otherwise tackling one particular threat simply leaves people open to another deadly disease soon afterwards. Tackling the structural causes of poverty and poor health, for example calling for measures to tackle inequality and injustices such as corporate tax evasion, are central to what is needed from the global community.

Conclusion

Hunger and poverty are serious global issues that are the root causes of numerous health problems and malnutrition worldwide, and are the reason behind the high annual mortality rates as depicted by global statistics. It is important that the world’s economic disparity be overcome in order to provide equal access to resources for the poor. Governmental organizations need to take prompt action and provide incentives to the poor in order to help them overcome their financial problems.