925 million people on the planet are hungry. That’s one in seven
people on earth. Experts agree that a concerted global effort to
address malnutrition could save the lives of 3.5 million
children a year. A lack of nutritious food can have an
irreversible effect on a young child’s mental and physical
growth. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone. It’s
a question of access. Malnourished mothers frequently give birth
to underweight babies. Underweight babies are 20 percent more
likely to die before the age of five. Why hunger matters Hunger
affects nearly a billion people – that’s more than the combined
populations of the United States, Canada and the European Union.
But world hunger can seem relatively innocuous compared to the
other threats we read in headlines every day. In reality,
chronic hunger and malnutrition hinder human development on
almost every level: socially, educationally, economically,
mentally and physically. That’s how hunger traps people in
poverty. The vicious cycle of chronic h