Child Hunger In America

Hunger is a result of poverty, as well as poverty being a result of hunger. Hunger causes the body’s radius to decrease in addition to a person’s level of energy and mental functions. An adult’s hunger struggle could seriously affect their labor abilities and could eventually lead to unemployment. Unemployment and low incomes are the all time leading causes of childhood hunger. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Why should there be hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life?” (Child Hunger Fact Sheet).

Childhood hunger in Africa and America should not be a comparison. Yes, hunger is an issue amongst a plethora of

communities in both of these locations, but one is much bigger in size and the other is easier to manage.
First off, with Africa being a continent, it should not be compared to a country in which one is suffering worse. Africa is much larger than the United States in population and land, therefore statistics will show that Africa is suffering worse. However, the continent faces a host of developmental challenges, especially adult and child hunger with malnutrition that threatens the core foundations of the impressive economic growth (Kamara and Renzaho).
Out of the world population of 7 billion people, there are an estimated 925 million hungry people, thus 13% or 1 in every 7 people are hungry (Were). According to data recorded in 2014, there are about 16 million children that are suffering from hunger in the United States compared to the 23 million children in Africa. With 66 million children that attend school, many go to their classes hungry across the developing world, which greatly impacts their ability to learn (Faso).
Poverty in places like Africa is totally different than poverty in the United States.

The causes of poverty include people's lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution, and hunger itself. Statistics from 2011 proved that the World Bank has estimated that there were just over 1 billion people in developing countries who live on $1.25 a day or less. In the United States, the minimum wage is currently $7.25 and has a chance of rising. This compared with 1.91 billion people in 1990, and 1.93 billion in 1981. This means that 17 percent of people in the developing world lived at or below $1.25 a day in 2011, down from 43 percent in 1990. Although minimum wage was not always $7.25, it was always higher here than in other countries (Child Hunger Fact Sheet). With families working hard and earning an income of $1.25 a day, they still would not have enough money to properly feed themselves and their children for a few days after a whole week of working.

In conclusion, hunger is a constant, chronic pain distressing many children. Famished children should have become a thing of the past a long time ago. The thought may seem impossible, but the world produces enough food to feed everyone. In the world as a whole, per capita food availability has risen from about 2220 kcal/person/day in the early 1960s to 2790 kcal/person/day in 2006-08, while developing countries also recorded a leap (2015 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and

Statistics).
The principal problem is that many people in the world still do not have sufficient incomes to purchase, or land to grow, enough food.

Although we, as college students, cannot put a stop to this detrimental issue ourselves, we can assist in ceasing the starvation in our local communities. We could conduct fundraisers for struggling families, and place food drives on campus and outside our local grocery stores. As well as fundraisers, we can make sure that more people are aware of how serious this matter is. Hunger is not a selective factor; it is bound to happen to anyone of us. Therefore, we, as a whole, should make an effort to help others as they go through this obstacle because we would want someone to do the same for us or our loved

ones.