Fighting malnutrition, 50 countries say they’ll make good nutrition a priority, By David Nabarro, June 25, 2014, Christian Science Monitor: “In 2008, an international medical journal (the Lancet) released a series of research papers on maternal and child nutrition. At that time the journal’s editor wrote, ‘nutrition is a desperately neglected aspect of maternal, newborn, and child health. The reasons are understandable, but not justifiable and the international nutrition system is broken. Leadership is absent, resources are too few, capacity is fragile, and emergency response systems are fragmentary. New governance arrangements are urgently needed.’ At that time the importance of nutrition as a key driver of development was not widely understood, or acknowledged; it was lost amongst the many competing issues straining to attract political attention and financial support. An article about the importance of malnutrition in human and economic development would have started by making the case . . .”
Tag: Malnutrition
UN World Hunger Figures
UN revises world hunger figures, blames flawed method, data for faulty 1 billion estimate, Associated Press, October 9, 2012, Washington Post: “The United Nations said Tuesday its 2009 headline-grabbing announcement that 1 billion people in the world were hungry was off-target and that the number is actually more like 870 million. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization blamed flawed methodology and poor data for the bum projection, and said it now uses a much more accurate set of parameters and statistics to calculate its annual estimate of the world’s hungry. FAO issued its 2012 state of food insecurity report on Tuesday, and its core point was to set the record straight about the number of the world’s undernourished people, applying the more accurate data retroactively to 1990. And the good news, FAO said, is that the number of hungry people has actually been declining steadily — rather than increasing — over the past two decades, although progress has slowed since the 2007-2008 food crises and the global economic downturn…”
Summer Food Programs
Summer food programs seeking new ways to assist children, By John McAuliff, July 1, 2012, USA Today: “Summer food programs aiming to keep U.S. children from going hungry have grown 25 percent in the last five years amid a nationwide push by local food banks to change the way they serve food to needy people. Summer food programs aiming to keep U.S. children from going hungry have grown 25 percent in the last five years amid a nationwide push by local food banks to change the way they serve food to needy people. Food banks say the rise in numbers is because of a push to find more creative ways to bring food to an estimated 19 million hungry U.S. children. . .”