Jan 10, 2025

Karen-Luz Sison

Breaking down hunger

We're breaking down the big buzzwords behind the global hunger crisis one by one, starting with the most obvious word: hunger.

What is hunger?

We all know what it means to go hungry. That gnawing feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you haven’t had anything to eat. But on a global scale, global hunger is a lot more complex than we think.

In technical terms, a person is facing hunger when they consume less than 1,800 calories a day. That’s just the number of calories needed for a day’s worth of energy to do things - not even counting essential vitamins and minerals.

Breaking down the words behind global hunger

 

When we talk about global hunger, we’re talking about millions of people facing chronic hunger, as in having multiple consecutive days where they have very little or nothing to eat.

Maereg Adhanom, a technical specialist of food security at World Vision Canada breaks the word ‘hunger’ down even more: “So, in simple words, hunger is the distress that we feel in relation to the lack of food. It’s not only the distress of the physical feeling when we feel hungry, but it is also an emotional stress.”

In other words, imagine being hangry all the time.

Around 783 million people around the world face that feeling on a daily basis. From Canada to the Congo, it can be a real struggle to find adequate amounts of food to reach that 1,800 calorie count.

For $15, you can help feed a child for a month. Donate now

 

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