Inadequate food availability is one of the most prominent problems the world faces today, and it affects children the most severely. Despite several decades of progress towards eliminating global hunger, the past 20 years have seen it getting worse. As of now, an estimated 19 million children worldwide are facing extreme hunger. Civil and international conflicts, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic are all pushing millions of children across the world to the verge of starvation every day and for some countries, the situation is yet to start improving.
Hunger and malnutrition severely affect children as they are growing. With inadequate nutrition, young children will be ‘stunted’ throughout their growth and in 2030, it is estimated that 129 million children will suffer from this because of hunger. From the WHO, “Stunting is the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation. Children are defined as stunted if their height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the WHO Child Growth Standards median.” Malnutrition also causes other significant health problems that, without adequate support, could lead to death. Every year, 2.3 million children die from malnutrition which makes up 45% of all child deaths.
Covid-19
Before the pandemic, there was a rising trend in levels of household food insecurity but now Covid-19 has left even more people struggling to afford access to a nutritious diet. Even though developed countries have managed to commence national vaccination procedures to secure their populations and come out of lockdown, millions of children are still experiencing the impacts of the global pandemic. The coronavirus has created unprecedented challenges and pressures onto already strained food and health systems, fragile economies and the lives of many people already living in struggle. Every month, 10 000 children under the age of 5 are at risk of dying from malnutrition because of the global pandemic.
Every nation was economically wounded as a cause of the pandemic and although most recovered, for poorer countries it is much more difficult to do so. Some developing countries are estimated to have lost over $220 billion in income because of the pandemic. A substantial loss for the economy like this poses tremendous challenges to the population; families cannot afford proper food and healthcare and vulnerable communities will be devastated, especially when an estimated 55% of the global population does not have access to social protection. Unfortunately, a loss of income also means an inflation of product prices, especially food and basic supplies. This makes it even more difficult for some to sustain an adequate diet. Several months after the start of the pandemic in 2020, the price of a basic food basket inflated more than 10% in 20 countries.
Throughout the world, the pandemic has brought extended periods of lockdown to schools, where students were inhibited from physically attending classes and for many, the meals provided at school are what they rely on as a key source of their daily nutrition. Because of these Covid-19 restrictions, 370 million children worldwide had missed on average 40% of school provided meals.
Conflict
A war, civil or international, will always have consequences on a population. For countries like Yemen and Afghanistan, these effects are devastating for civilians. Conflicts force people to relocate, leaving behind their homes and jobs, leaving families with no way to provide for their children. Wars also reduce the availability of food and basic provisions, with armed violence destroying agricultural zones and crippling local economies. Of the worlds 13 worst food crises, 10 are driven by conflict. In a zone of conflict, children will be most affected as they are twice as likely to suffer from malnutrition compared to children living in a peaceful environment.
Climate
The current climate crisis has also played a significant role in the increase of global hunger. As the Earths average temperature increases, areas around the world become more and more prone to extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods and other natural disasters. These disasters create devastating problems for agriculture, especially in less developed regions, where agriculture is not industrialized and dependant on manual labour. Most can completely ruin a crop yield, leaving many people without food, and the owners without income. Having neither provisions nor money, obtaining a healthy diet becomes extremely difficult and as the frequency of these events continuous to increase, so do the number of people affected by them.