Hunger

Whenever I hear the word stressors, I would like to believe that only adults are impacted by the different stressors that inhibit our lives. Children should be free to be children…they should be nurtured, loved, fed and not have to take on the worries of the world. How luxurious that would be, however, we are not so fortunate, as children are just as impacted by the stressors that come in and out of their lives.

One stressor that has touched someone close to me is hunger. Hunger was a stressor that played a significant role throughout my husband’s early childhood. His parents moved to Canada from Germany when he was just a baby and they did not speak English. His parents struggled financially and there were many countless days where he went hungry. He remembers not being able to focus in school as all he could hear was his tummy rumbling. At that time there were no “breakfast clubs” as this was seen as an issue for developing countries, not in our community. His preoccupation with his talking tummy labeled him as a child who couldn’t pay attention and couldn’t focus. The teachers never identified the true reason for his lack of concentration.  His experience as a hungry child has impacted him now as a father of two children. He goes above and beyond to make sure that all of their wants and needs are met.  This experience also gave him the internal motivation to continue with his education and obtain a good job, so he wouldn’t have to experience a rumbling tummy ever again! I never question our grocery bills as his relationship with food and the lack of is something that I could never relate to.

We tend to think of hunger as something typically associated with underdeveloped countries, but in fact hunger is a stressor in our own communities.  Poverty is a main contributor to hunger (World Hunger Education.) Without the financial means to fulfill all expenses needed to live, may leave at times empty plates on the table.  I have worked in many programs where the majority of the clientele were low income families.  We made sure that we provided healthy and nutritious meals rich with protein, fruit and vegetables as we knew that might be the only meals they would consume for the day. We even sent home left over food at the end of the day to families who were open to take it. In our communities we have the food bank, breakfast clubs, and other organizations to aid families who are dealing with hunger, but what about the developing countries? How do they deal with hunger? 

An estimated 146 million children in developing countries are underweight - the result of acute or chronic hunger (Source: The State of the World's Children, UNICEF, 2009).

Africa

"More than 30 million children and adults across the swath of Africa face a devastating hunger crisis." Hunger in countries such as Africa due to poverty, poor rainfall, crop failures and skyrocketing food prices make it challenging for families to provide nutritious food for their children. Everyday children go without eating the right nutritious foods puts them behind in their growth and development. This hunger due to lack of food causes death, illness as their immune systems are down which make them vulnerable to diseases like diarrhea, malaria, and pneumonia (Save the Children Federation, Inc.). We think that poverty causes hunger, but in turn hunger causes poverty as poor health, low energy levels, and hunger can lead to greater poverty as it increases the inability for people to work and learn.

Hunger around the world either in developing or developed countries will persist to be a stressor that we will maintain to battle as a universal issue unless we can put an end to hunger. Whether we are directly or indirectly impacted by it, we can choose to make a difference whether big measures or small!