Poverty, Hunger and Malnutrition
Every morning when I wake up the first thought in my mind is usually: FOOD! I often lie in bed for a few extra minutes, planning out what I am going to eat for breakfast. Seldom as I go through this routine do I stop to think about those who are less fortunate than me. I often take for granted that everyone wakes up and eats breakfast. But this is far from true, not everyone shares the luxuries that we have in the United States. Some people wake up and wonder if they will eat at all that day, let alone eat breakfast. Why? Because food, like many other things, is unequally distributed throughout the world.
The struggle for enough food has gone on for centuries. Back in primitive days, the first task human beings undertook was the search for food. Primitive people were collectors, they would find what they could to eat and hope that it would be enough. When this failed to meet the population's needs, humans became hunters and trapped their food. Finally, some years later, humans began to farm the land. Because of the growing demand for food, those who could produce the most crops were considered the most powerful.
But the limits of farming too were quickly discovered. If the earth were to produce food naturally, there would only be enough to feed about ten million individuals. With the earth's population now exceeding five billion we can see how this could pose a problem. Because of this overwhelming gap between how much the earth can produce and how much is actually needed, many agricultural advancements have been made that allow us to produce much more.
One very important advancement was the irrigation system. This system supplies dry land with water by means of ditches, pipes, or st...
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... flowers came from, after all it is too cold for flowers to grow in America. But these flowers are not grown here, they are grown in Mexico. Huge plantations of fertile land are bought by American coporations and instead of being used for agricultural purposes, the land is used to grow flowers for Valentine's Day. People struggle to provide enough food to feed and nurish their families, while fertile land is being wasted to grow flowers. Atrocities such as this are commited by the rich countries every day. We take from other less fortunate countries valuable resources that they truly need, though we have plenty of our own resources to work with. Perhaps if people in the US (as well as the other rich countries) began conserving more and wasting less on luxuries that we do not really need, we could take the first step towards helping those less fortunate than we are.
When beginning the readings in the module about poverty, I was struck by a sense of shame. Jenson & Fraser (2011) have some pretty hard-hitting statistics and the graphs did a really good job illustrating the prevalence and trends in poverty; I really appreciated graph 2.1, which displays the racial and ethnic disparities that exist for children experiencing poverty, because it demonstrates how the national rate of childhood poverty can be deceptive (26-30).
Hunger is a very important issue in the United States. The film “Place at the table” addresses to this problem through the stories of American people and families who have to face the struggle with hunger on the daily basis. It is hard to believe that such a prosperous country like United States has such an issue, but the statistics provided by U.S. Department of Agriculture tells us the horrifying truth that one in every six Americans does not have enough food to eat. That is approximately fifty million people. The government and majority of US people are in denial of this problem, because they are simply ashamed to acknowledge it. Hunger can be next door in your neighborhood, but nobody knows about it, because people afraid to talk about it.
Exposure to violence in the first years of life brings about helplessness and terror which can be attributed to the lack of protection received by the parent. The child can no longer trust their parent as a protector (Lieberman 2007). This lack of trust early in life can bring about serious problems later in life, as there is no resolution to the first psychosocial crisis, trust vs. mistrust. For these children exposed to domestic violence, the imaginary monsters that children perceive are not only symbolic representations or a dream. The monsters that children who witness domestic violence have to deal with carry the reflection of their parents. Children who witness domestic violence face a dilemma because the children’s parents are at their most frightening exactly when the child needs them the most. The security of the child is shatter...
Gundersen, Waxman, Engelhard, and Brown (2010) found in their study that 50 million people (including 17 million children) were food insecure in 2010. Poverty and food insecurity affects the lives of billions of people worldwide and millions of people in the United States. More than two billion pe...
There are many sad scenarios that come to mind when thinking about the victims of domestic violence. With this particular issue, the victims are impacted mentally and physically. A situation that comes to mind is one of a little boy hiding under his bed. He is in a neighboring room and can hear furniture moving and screams of his mother in agonizing pain. He understands that he is too small to intervene on his mother’s behalf and too scared to confront his father. What is he left to do? The young boy calls 911 with the hopes that they could step in and end his mother’s pain. The boy’s father repeatedly abused his mother and insisted that she stay in her place and never considers ending the relationship. This fictional situation is one that occurs everyday in every corner of our country. Domestic violence incidents in 2005 accoun...
The irrigation systems help to keep the food supply plentiful which helped to play a role in the development of civilizations because it didn't require groupd to move when the food source got low.
Poverty has been a growing problem in America, and it most likely will never stop being one. Someone who is identified as being in poverty lives beneath the poverty line determined by the Federal government. The poverty line in 2015 for a family of four was $24,250. These are the people who are really considered poor. Poverty isn’t just a problem in the United States; in fact, other countries struggle just as much, if not more, than the United States does. Many people struggle to keep themselves above the government’s poverty line, shown by the fact that the percent of poor people in America hasn’t drastically changed over the years. However, it is possible to get out of, and ultimately stay out of, poverty.
In 2013 17.5 million households were food insecure, or had trouble providing the food needed because of a lack economic of resources. Of these 17.5 million households that were food insecure, 6.8 million household have very low food security, previously called food insecurity with hunger (Coleman-Jensen, Gregory, & Singh, 2013). Food insecurity has been shown to have a negative effect on a variety of health outcomes. Food insecurity is associated with deficiencies of nutrient rich food, poorer self-reported health, mental health issues, increased rate of chronic disease, cognitive issues for children, and higher rates of obesity (Cook, et al., 2004; Lee & Frongillo, 2001; Martin & Lippert, 2012; Seligman Laraia, & Kushel, 2010; Siefert, Heflin,
In order for us to maintain our lives, we need to consume food to supply nutrient-needs for our bodies. As the global population increased, the demand for food also increased. Increased population led to mass production of foods. However, even with this mass production, in under-developed countries, people are still undernourished. On other hand, in developed and developing countries, people are overfed and suffering from obesity. In addition, the current methods of industrial farming destroy the environment. These problems raised a question to our global food system. Will it be able to sustain our increasing global population and the earth? With this question in my mind, I decided to investigate the sustainability of our current global food system.
Poverty itself is a controversial and widely debated issue with a variety of opposing viewpoints. Despite differences in opinions on how poverty should be treated, the vast majority agrees that poverty is a problem plagues the nation on both economic and social levels. Economically, poverty affects everyone. As taxes are paid by the entire nation, poverty influences where our money goes and how it is spent. Socially, poverty affects families and individuals on an emotional level. Impoverishment affects happiness and health, the decisions people make, and most importantly the development of children. To best understand poverty, one must look at the issue economically and socially, and contextualize the numbers surrounding poverty as well as
The bystander effect is a social phenomenon, whereby individuals are less likely to help when others are present. This emerged following the murder of Kitty Genovese, 1964. Manning, Levine and Collins (2007) state, ‘this iconic event focused research attention on the psychology of helping and how groups act as impediments to helping.’ (pp. 555). Theorists argue the more bystanders, the less likely people help. Arguably, one cause of the bystander effect is diffusion of responsibility, this is the idea that when a task is presented before a larger group,
According to Saunders (2005) what are the consequences of living in poverty? How does it affect children and family life?
In the past ten years the world population exceeded six billion people with most of the growth occurring in the poorest, least developed countries in the world. The rapidly increasing population and the quickly declining amount of land are relative and the rate at which hunger is increasing rises with each passing year. We cannot afford to continue to expand our world population at such an alarming rate, for already we are suffering the consequences. Hunger has been a problem for our world for thousands of years. But now that we have the technology and knowledge to stamp it out, time is running short.
Many often have feelings of unreality and think this can’t be happening to me. When the assault happens they are shocked, terrified and surprised. Many victims describe feeling powerless, anxious, and helpless, guilt, and hostility, anger and low self-esteem. During the incident, they report having a rapid heartbeat, hyperventilation, stomach upset and feelings of no control. Many will find it hard to find the words to describe what happened to them cohesively. The Victims of home invasions describe feelings of violation, vulnerability and unease in their own
925 million people are living today without any breakfast, lunch or dinner. Day after day, they starve without any food. The worst part is that we don’t have enough food to feed the world today so how will we be able to feed the world in 2050 if the worlds population is supposed to grow by 7 billion people?! The world’s population will grow from 7 billion to about 9.6 billion by 2050 and food production will have to increase by 70 percent.