HUNGER FACTS


More than 1 billion people experience hunger on a daily basis.

Hungry children and their families can be found in every corner of the world.

They include:

• Subsistence farmers – They are farmers who grow only enough crops to feed their own family, but eventually end up with an inadequate yield
• City dwellers - They don’t earn enough to buy the food they need

The number of children affected by hunger is growing too:

• Worldwide, 1 in 4 children don’t get the nutrition they need.

Sources: World Food Program, Food and Agriculture Organisation

The poor spend up to 75 percent of their income on food.

Rising food prices may force us to eat out less often or rearrange other spending priorities. For impoverished children, however, even a modest increase in food prices can have devastating consequences.

• In 2008, food prices soared by 57 percent, sparking a global food crisis.
• Several countries experienced riots because millions could no longer afford to buy basics like bread and rice.

The food crisis has affected children in different ways:

• Faced with higher food prices, many children have been forced to eat cheaper and less nutritious food.
• Others have to cut back from two meals a day to just one.
• In the worst cases, children may go without food for days at a time.

Sources: Food and Agriculture Organisation

Every 7 seconds, a child dies from hunger-related cause.

Hunger is one of the leading child killers in our world, contributing to more than half of all child deaths:

• Every year, nearly 5 million hungry children die.
• Even if a child is just moderately underweight, she is four times more likely to die from an infectious disease compared to a well-nourished child.
• Worldwide, approximately 145 million children are underweight and at risk of dying — simply because they don’t get enough nutritious food.

Sources: UNICEF, United Nations Development Program


Hunger perpetuates the vicious cycle of poverty.

Hunger and malnutrition rob children of their future:

• A hungry child is less likely to stay in school. Yet education is crucial to long-term food security. Food security is the condition in which people have secure access to food sources. A farmer with four years of elementary education is almost 9 percent more productive than a farmer with no education.
• Hungry families are unable to invest in their own future. Hunger costs the world an estimated $20-30 billion per year in economic development.

Sources: Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Food Program



World Vision is leading the fight against hunger.

World Vision has been helping hungry children for nearly six decades.

• Since 1984, World Vision has provided emergency food supplies to more than 50 million people.
• World Vision is the largest distributor of food aid provided by the World Food Program.