“Rich or poor, young or old — every person in the world needs to eat. Safe and nutritious food provides not only life and health but hope”- Antonio Guterres UN Secretary-General
We all know how it feels to be hungry especially after skipping meals, when we eat our hunger goes away. When we talk about hunger as a problem, we are talking about food insecurity.
Food insecurity is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life. This can be a temporary situation for a household or can last a long time. Food insecurity is one way we can measure how many people cannot afford food.
Food is essential to living we need food to survive, be healthy, and also productive. World health organization defined health as “A state of complete physical, mental and social. well-being and not merely the absence of. disease or infirmity” – WHO Constitution. Food insecurity is strongly associated with poor mental and physical health, especially with chronic diseases. So, to stay physically fit healthy active, and innovative we need food.
After decades of steady decline, the number of people who suffer from hunger – as measured by the prevalence of undernourishment – began to slowly increase again in 2015. According to the world food program, as many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night, and the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared – from 135 million to 345 million – since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.
Malnutrition rates are rising due to deteriorating purchasing power and limited access to a healthy diet and health care.
Stay tuned for my next article on The causes of Food Crises in Nigeria.