Belly Ache

Tim — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 23:01:00 -0500

Someone dies from hunger about every 4 seconds. I gave a variation of this as my Toastmasters CTM speech 3, and it was clocked at just over 5 minutes. In that time over 70 people passed away because of hunger.

April 7th through the 9th was a physically filling and fattening weekend. An outside observer might have guessed that I was in the first phases of a competitive eating training regimine. Kate and I ate out three times. Four, if you count a visit to Grandma's house, and since Grandma always offers heaping portions and multiple desserts, well, let's count that. At work we always end the week with lunch at Governor Stumpy's because it's so tasty and the people are always smiling. Saturday Kate and I had a (*clears throat*) "light" lunch at the Jerusalem cafe on Saturday, and we followed that with the trip to Grandma's house. On Sunday, we ate so much at the Ruchi Indian Restaurant's buffet that I had a belly ache all afternoon!

Right now I have a belly ache of a different sort. I learned a great deal about hunger and malnutrition over the last few days because Kate and I are choosing charities to put on our wedding registry. Harvesters quickly floated to the top of our list because of their strong presence in the Kansas City community coupled with their incredibly low administrative overhead, and my normally full belly had an empty and aching feeling as I read some of their statistics. For the price of a soda, complete with free refills, Harvesters can feed 10 people. My tuna melt and tip at the Stump could have satisfied 60 people. Ugh... belly ache.

I'm going to go over some of the facts and figures, but first lets get some definitions out of the way.

hunger: (a) a craving or urgent need for food or a specific nutrient, (b) an uneasy sensation occasioned by the lack of food, (c) a weakened condition brought about by prolonged lack of food

malnutrition: faulty and especially inadequate nutrition

In my own words I'd say that hunger is a belly ache from not eating enough, while malnutrition is a condition induced from a long term lack of nutrients. If someone ate macaroni and cheese everyday all day, that person would not be hungry. He'd probably even be fat, but unless he was eating super fortified and enriched mac and cheese, he'd be quite malnourished by a lack of important vitamins and minerals.

Globally, 1 in 12 people are malnourished. Some parts of the world are worse than others, with an extreme example being Afghanistan. 70% of the population of that country are currently undernourished according to the World Food Programme.

Remember your mother forcing you to eat your carrots because they were good for your eyes? The special ingredient that keeps your eyes in top notch condition is vitamin A, and approximately 250,000 to 500,000 children go blind each year because they have a vitamin A deficiency [WIKIPEDIA]. Beyond blindness, as many as one million child deaths could have been prevented by vitamin A supplementation between 1998 and 2000 [UNICEF].

Iron is another everyday nutrient that isn't in the everyday diet in sufficient quantities for a sizable portion of the world population, and enriching people's diets with iron would be the single most cost effective action that we could take to improve the health of the world.

Those of us living in the United States may find hunger and malnutrition to be remote problems that deserve the attention of international organizations and think tanks. We don't have to deal with hunger and malnourishment here, right? Although hunger isn't as pronounced in the United States as in many parts of the world, over one tenth of our population experienced insecurity in their food supply in 2004. Many of those affected by food insecurity lead normal lives otherwise; people with jobs, homes, and hobbies for whom something went wrong. A missed paycheck or an unforeseen medical emergency is all that it takes for many people to have to make tough decisions between food, rent, or medication.

Let's zoom in just a little more. When asked why they like Kansas City, many people mention the small city feeling and the friendliness of most residents. Hunger may exist in rural areas or in overbearingly large cities, but surely in such a personal and friendly city as KC we manage to feed those who hunger. Not quite. Harvesters is our only area food bank, and through a distribution network that includes 550 not-for-profit organizations they help approximately 60 thousand people each week. About 3% of our metropolitan population seeks assistance each week, and 43% of those in need are children. All of this support adds up to some pretty incredible numbers. For instance, 23 million pounds of food were distributed in 2005.

My dad always, always, always made sure that we were not only fed, but fed incredibly well. He picked up this habit from his own father, and it seems to have induced a condition in our family that causes us to get incredibly grumpy or just plain mean if it has been more than about six waking hours since we last ate. My pampered palate caused these facts about hunger and malnutrition to really resonate with me. It was an eyeopener to see how many people go without food at all for a day or more, especially when I get edgy after six snack less hours.

There is a bright side to this situation. Since the 1960s the world has produced enough food to sufficiently feed everyone, we just have to figure out how to distribute all of the food appropriately.

Many people are still digging into Easter baskets and indulging in treats that they may have voluntarily gone without for 40 days and 40 nights prior to Easter. I hope we will all take a moment to remember those people who involuntarily go without by contributing to an organization dedicated to feeding people at an international, national, or local level. Food is not only necessary, food is wonderful. Enjoy indulging in life's nourishing pleasures, but be careful to avoid overindulgence or you may end up with a belly ache.

Peak Progress: Belly Ache

Belly Ache