Overview

The term “food insecurity� may seem technical to some, but when it is defined in its most basic terms�a lack of nutritious food needed to keep people alive and healthy�it becomes frighteningly human. Some 800 million of the world’s people�200 million of them children�suffer from chronic undernutrition [1] [2]. (See Malnutrition.)

When the global numbers are added up, nutrition seems to be improving. Life expectancy is growing worldwide, and better nutrition is one of the key factors behind this rise [3]. On the surface at least, there is plenty of food. Global supplies of food are in relatively good shape, with surpluses in many areas of the world. (See "Progress in Feeding the World Has Varied Widely".) One researcher has calculated that if the global food supply were converted to calories and divided by the world’s population, there would be enough food for roughly 12 percent more than the actual population [4].

Progress in feeding the world has varied widely by region
Tallied on a global basis, total food production and per capita production have booth risen significantly from 1960 to 1995, but a regional breakdown shows a more complex picture. In Asia and Latin America, both total and per capita production have risen markedly. Meanwhile, in Africa, food needs rose faster than total production increases, so per capita food production has drifted downward. Severe economic disruption in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe beginning in 1991 with the Soviet breakup is reflected in notable decreases in total production and per capita production.
Trends in Per capita Food Production, 1961-96	Trends in world food production, 1961-96
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), FAOSTAT Statistical Database (FAO, Rome, 1997). Note: Figures are indexed to 1961 production levels.

Yet this simple calculation hides the difficulty of matching global food supply with actual food needs at a local level. Even though the problem might not be one of production for the world as a whole, production failures at the local level are indeed among the major causes of hunger [5].

The statistics on hunger and malnutrition are discouraging, especially as they concern children. About one third of the children in developing countries are malnourished, according to the World Health Organization [6]. In addition, malnutrition is associated with over half the deaths among children in developing countries under the age of 5 [7]. Malnutrition in children is generally determined by weight�the percentage of children under age 5 who weigh considerably less than the general population [8]. Low-birth-weight babies are children who are born weighing less than 2,500 grams. Their low weight is generally attributed to maternal malnutrition. When children begin life with a low-weight deficit, they are often prone to a shortened lifetime full of troubles, including retarded development and susceptibility to disease [9].

References and notes

1. Even though in general parlance the words "hunger," "starvation," "undernutrition," and "malnutrition" are often used interchangeably, FAO makes some distinctions among them. Individuals experiencing "undernutrition" have an insufficient intake of energy for normal growth and physical development, body maintenance, and for pursuing ordinary human activities. "Malnutrition" is more strictly defined as a nutritional disorder resulting from faulty or inadequate nutrition. It is also used to describe dietary deficiencies (e.g., micronutrient deficiencies such as vitamin A, iodine, or iron).

2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Agriculture and Food Security: The Situation Today-- hunger Amid Plenty. Available online at: http://www.fao.org/wfs/fs/e/agricult/AgSit-e.htm (September 25, 1997).

3. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1997 (Oxford University Press, New York, 1997), p. 148.

4. Peter Uvin, "The State of World hunger," in The hunger Report: 1995, Ellen Messer and Peter Uvin, eds. (Gordon and Breach Publishers SA, Amsterdam, 1996), p. 1. Uvin uses 1993 FAO figures compiled in 1994 and assumes the average per capita caloric requirement is 2,350 kilocalories per day.

5. Nikos Alexandratos, ed., World Agriculture: Toward 2010 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1995), p. 44.

6. The World Bank, World Development Indicators 1997 (The World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1997), p. 83.

7. World Health Organization (WHO), The World Health Report 1997 (WHO, Geneva, 1997), pp. 13-14.

8. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), underweight is defined as more than 2 standard deviations below the median weight of a reference population. WHO, World Health Statistics Annual 1995 (WHO, Geneva, 1996), p. xi.

9. Op. cit. 6, p. 85.