Student reaction essay on hunger.

    From when I can remember, I have the same routine everyday: take a shower, eat breakfast, and brush my teeth. Throughout each and every day I consume various snacks along with having lunch and dinner.  When I begin to worry about the certain things I deal with in life, I have never had to worry when my next source of food will be. I can wake up every morning fully assured that I will have a meal on my plate. To know that there are people who do not have this luxury in the world, let alone in the United States, is heartbreaking. We need to implement policies that ensure no one should have to go hungry.

    The world is facing a hunger crisis unlike anything else it has seen in nearly 50 years. Every day almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That's one child every 5 seconds. Every year 15 million children die of hunger. The World Bank estimates that the spike in global food prices in 2008, followed by the global economic recession in 2009 and 2010 has pushed between 100-150 million people into poverty. Suffering from poverty results in one of many things: less money for food.

    A recent study given to us in one of our lectures stated that 1.4 million people go a day without eating because of the lack of resources to obtain food. We also learned that 64 million people suffer from very low food security. Of these people that had very low food security, 20% of them went a whole day with nothing to eat. I immediately thought to myself that there is no way these statistics can be true. I eat meals on a daily basis, why isn’t everyone else in the world.

    Nearly one in four people, live on less than $1 per day, while billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people.  While the military continues to spend money, one missile could feed a school full of children every day for 5 years. I strongly believe that hunger and race are intertwined in the United States. In 1991, 46% of African-American children were hungry as compared to 16% of white children. The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40% and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age.

    I never thought twice about how fortunate I am to have the luxury of eating. I always thought we all had to eat to survive, but 16.1% of people in the world are malnourished! This statistic is extremely high and should have never been this high in the first place. I feel since the United States is such a strong and powerful country, we should have the power to feed everyone. One of the Millennium Development Goals in the U.N. is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. This goal should be implemented throughout the world and quickly! Providing the food and nourishment that is needed to maintain overall good health is a responsibility each person owes another.