Q3.a.How would you advocate the unequal distribution of food as major factor that
contributes to malnutrition?
Answers
Answer:
One of the most striking examples of the unequal distribution of resources on the planet is the existence of chronic hunger in some parts of the world. Especially for children, hunger can be deadly or have grave consequences. As such, one of the millennium development goals is to reduce severe and moderate malnutrition by half among children that are younger than five years old.
Background
In the past decade there has been some success in combating global hunger, but there are still 150 million children that are malnourished. Of these, more than half are from South Asia and a large part from Africa.[1]
Malnutrition remains one of the main causes of infant mortality in the world.
Growing hunger
The amount of hungry people on our planet has steadily declined since the end of the 1970s. However, since 2004 there has been an overall increase in hunger levels. This development was aggravated by the economic crisis and rising food prices.[2]
In 2008 this led to a world food price crisis causing riots and unrest in many developing countries. When the crisis subsided, food prices dropped for several years. However, in January 2011, global food prices reached their highest level ever, according to the FAO.[3]