This video connects to my topic child hunger because they show how kids in africa and other countries live with out food.
_ “Food Insecurity has emerged as a global crisis following the global economic meltdown” ( Demetre Labadarios, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, Nelia Patricia Steyn, 2011). Food insecurity exists when food is not easily accessible and households have difficulty securing adequate food. As a result of food insecurity children are the ones affected. Food insecurity especially affects South African children. Food insecurity happens because of poor distribution and lack of purchasing power. Child hunger also happens because of the bad economy. The lack of access to food and extreme poverty has lead to child hunger. Child hunger, the uneasy or painful sensation caused by lack of food. The CCHIP index defines hunger as the mental and physical condition arising from not eating enough food and physical conditions arising from not eating enough food because of insufficient economic resources within the family or community. Hunger continues to strike killing nearly 6.5 million children each year (“Around the World, “2007). “53 percent of children go to bed hungry, 48 percent of children meals are cut, and 49 percent of children say they are hungry and 50 percent of children at less. 21.6% of children between 0-9 years suffer from starving, 10% are underweight and 4% are wasted” (Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, Nelia Patricia Steyn, 2011). This illustrates that child hunger is a big deal that needs to be worked on because as we see in the results of the percentage of children that go to bed hungry or don’t eat make up half of them. A lot of children that need help, but really no one is offering solutions. There are children that don’t even have access to food where they live at. A big percent of children die of hunger. The mortality rate for children under five is the second highest in the world. Every 3.5 seconds a person dies of hunger 75 percent of them are children. Child hunger affects a young person’s ability to learn and becomes more likely to suffer from poverty as adult. Most of the people that starve to death around the world are children. Almost a fifth 19 percent of children between the ages of 13 and 215 months were underweight. Every year 15 million children die of hunger. (“Around the World,” 2007). The scientists found that children who went hungry at least once in their lives were 2½ times more likely to have poor overall health 10 to 15 years later, compared with those who never had to go without food. "The research shows that hunger and food insecurity are really damaging in terms of children's life chances," people should start making changes organizations etc. in order for this percentage of children dying to increase. Children who struggle with hunger are sick more often, recover more slowly, and are more likely to be hospitalized (“Around the world,” 2007). “Lack of enough nutritious food impairs a child’s ability to concentrate and perform well in school. Children who regularly do not get enough nutritious food have more behavioral, emotional and academic problems and tend to be more aggressive and anxious and have difficulty getting along with other kids “(Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, NeliaPatricia Steyn, 2011). Showing that child hunger could cause a lot of problems in children’s life, their health their emotions and even the way they act at school. This could damage them so much. Children have higher chances to suffer from sickness and mental health. South Africa really does not have a good access to food. “Access has been defined as household’s ability to acquire enough food of sufficient quality to have all of its members meet their nutritional requirements and lead productive loves”. (Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, Nelia Patricia Steyn, 2011).” Food access showed that households that enjoyed food security consumed an average of 16 different food items over 24 hours, where as poorer households spent less money on food and consumed fewer than 8 different food items” (“Around the world”, 2007). A limited of 39 percent of food id available in the house and a 46 percent of households runs out of money to buy food (“Around the world”, 2007). "Never before in the history of South Africa have such large gatherings of people consistently said we have no food” (Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, Nelia Patricia Steyn, 2011).'The lack of money could lower the food access for many households (Grant, 1985). Every government should provide food access for every household especially to the poorest family because without the food access people do not eat. And if people do not eat, they stay in hunger and the ones that get more affected are children. Illustrating that people should fight for the food they need. More than one third of the children in all age groups scored very low in terms of food diversity. Food access can be measured both in terms of the hunger experienced by individuals within a household or of the household’s dietary diversity (Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, NeliaPatricia Steyn, 2011). “Is a reminder that there is more than enough food on the planet to feed every human being and to meet the standards set in international human rights law” The livelihood survey indicated that household members often skipped meals because of a lack of food.(Around the world, 2007). The majority of South Africans still perceive themselves as lacking enough food and income to meet all their household needs diversity (Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, NeliaPatricia Steyn, 2011). Food access a cause for child hunger. Many parents of the children that do not have food access which allows for them to give a quality meal meaning those children go to bed hungry, all connects to one whole thing, child hunger and poverty. The author said we have more then enough food to feed every meaning there should not be children dying or suffering from hunger. “Poverty is multi-dimensional and cannot be reduced to a single definition. Some researchers, especially in developing countries, have attempted to broaden the concept of poverty to include aspects of wellbeing and inequality which reflect the lived experience of being poor more realistically”. South Africa since 1994, the country is plagued by poverty following the recent global economic crisis by steep food. In 2005 Niger’s poverty and widespread hunger hit the world news (Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, NeliaPatricia Steyn, 2011). Niger’s experience shows that relying on the market to solve food shortages leaves the poorest people hungrier and drives small farmers into further poverty while large food traders gain monopoly power”. While 63 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day, in July 2005 a Nigerian farmer paid more for a kilogram of millet at the local market than a European or an American consumer paid for a kilogram of rice in the supermarket. (Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, NeliaPatricia Steyn, 2011). In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people living in absolute poverty is rising (Around the world, 2007). The lack of help or power of people or government reflects the poverty that South African people live in. The little pay they get just a dollar is nothing compare to what they get pay in the United States. If people that live in the United States sometimes did not get pay so well and could make things through. I do not want to imagine how people can live with a budget that low per day. Seeing these results show me and other people so much of how the government works at the South Africa, not helping their citizens. “Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The causes of poverty include poor people's lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself” (Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, NeliaPatricia Steyn, 2011). One in every two children in the world lives in poverty. Those households living in poverty have sunk deeper into poverty and the gap between rich and poor has widened. Approximately 57 percent of individuals in South Africa were living below the poverty income line in 2001 unchanged from 1996 (“Around the world”, 2007).” The HSRC study has shown that the poverty gap has grown from 56-billion in 1996 to 81-billion in 2001 indicating that poor households have sunk deeper into poverty over this period.” (Demeter Lapidaries, Zandile June-Rose Mchiza, NeliaPatricia Steyn, 2011). "The people of South Africa living in poverty are saying they are not okay”, they are hungry and struggling”. They are unemployed" (“Around the world”, 2007). This shows the lack of the bad economic that South Africa has and how the government work with citizens. People living in South Africa live in really poor conditions that they don’t even have food to eat and that’s something we should all have food. Poverty has increased instead of decreasing and the economy may get worst and more people suffer in poverty. This issue matters because no child should have an empty stomach. Every human deserves the right to have access to food in order for them to eat. We all are humans that deserve equal rights but not all of us have that right to have food everyday in the table. The own government puts does poor children in hunger because the lack of interested they have to help people out. We have many obstacles in this world that lead us to not overcome our struggles, even economic could be an obstacle. We could overcome all the struggles by believing in ourselves and unifying ourselves as a one. This affects all of us in some way because children are the future and if children keep on dying because of hunger, we are going to lose all of our future teachers, scientist etc. Children get affected really badly when they do not eat children could suffer from many things and in the future that hunger could affect them a lot it could change their entire life. Child hunger remains as a big problem that a lot people do not know about, but we have to make justice by letting people know what’s going on by explaining to them what child hunger means, and what child hunger causes and how it could affect all of us in one way .The big picture of this is that our children are suffering when they should not. Children should be happy out playing going to school, not worrying about money or having something to eat.