Women. Women are disproportionately affected by hunger; in nearly two-thirds of the world's countries, women are more likely than men to suffer from hunger and food insecurity.
Behind these massive statistics are individual children, women and men suffering from the dire effects of such severe hunger. Malnourished mothers give birth to malnourished babies, passing hunger from one generation to the next. Children's physical and cognitive growth is stunted.
As many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021 – 46 million people more from a year earlier and 150 million more from 2019. After remaining relatively unchanged since 2015, the proportion of people affected by hunger jumped in 2020 and continued to rise in 2021, to 9.8% of the world population.
Who does hunger affect? An overwhelming majority of the world's hungry people reside in the developing world, where extreme poverty and lack of access to nutritious food often leads to malnutrition. Women and children are particularly vulnerable.
Around 45% of deaths among children under 5 years of age are linked to undernutrition. Approximately 45 million young children across the globe suffer from severe malnutrition each year – that's nearly one out of every three children under 5 years of age.
Children are among the most vulnerable: some will not survive and others will suffer the consequences of undernourishment, including stunting. The severe consequences of neglecting the needs of a child during their first thousand days, is well evidenced.
Food insecurity was most common (6.2 percent) in people between the ages of 75 and 84.
The highest number of malnourished people, 520 million, lives in Asia and the Pacific, in countries like Indonesia and the Philippines. In sub-Saharan Africa, 243 million people face hunger in arid countries like Ethiopia, Niger and Mali.
Poverty. Poverty is the greatest cause of hunger around the world – in both higher-wealth and low- to middle-income countries. Most people who are hungry live in extreme poverty, defined as income of $2.15 per day or less.
Hunger can lead to malnutrition, which can cause various physical health problems, including stunted growth, weakened immune systems, and increased risk of disease.
But hunger doesn't affect everyone equally - some groups like children, seniors, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color face hunger much higher rates. Hunger also most often affects our neighbors who live in poverty.
As many as 828 million people – or 10 percent of the world's population – go to bed hungry each night, 46 million more than the previous year, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Of those affected by hunger, two-thirds are women and 80 percent live in areas prone to climate change.
People who already lack adequate food are at the greatest risk when famine occurs. Among them, children and pregnant and nursing women are the most vulnerable.
Without access to adequate, healthy food, people are likely to be hungry, undernourished, and in poor health, with high rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other nutrition-related health problems. Even when families can scrape together enough, a balanced and healthy diet is often beyond their reach.
Which are the least hungry countries in the World as per the latest Global Hunger Index? Eighteen countries, including China, Brazil and Kuwait, shared the top rank with GHI score of less than five in 2021.
Without sufficient and sustainable incomes, families cannot afford access to nutritious food, clean water, or health care. As a result, one in three children in low- and middle-income countries suffers from chronic undernutrition.
The more people there are, especially in poor countries with limited amounts of land and water, the fewer resources there are to meet basic needs. If basic needs cannot be met, development stalls and economies begin to unravel.
Poverty and hunger exist in a vicious cycle. Families trapped in the cycle of poverty usually can't afford nutritious food, leading to undernourishment. In turn, undernourishment makes it difficult for people to earn more money so that they can afford healthy food.
Young children, adolescents and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding are the most vulnerable to the malnutrition known as 'undernutrition'. Here is why: their bodies have a greater need for nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals.
According to this measure, 226.7 million people are starving in Africa. The countries most affected by extreme poverty and hunger in Africa are mainly those located south of the Sahara. One in four people suffers from hunger there – which means that the share of the world's hungry is highest in sub-Saharan Africa.
There are 5 countries with 2022 GHI scores in the alarming range—Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Yemen—and an additional 4 countries provisionally designated as alarming—Burundi, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria—despite there being insufficient data for the calculation ...
In addition, children with unemployed parents have higher rates of food insecurity than children with employed parents. Disabled adults may be at a higher risk for food insecurity due to limited employment opportunities and health care-related expenses that reduce the income available to buy food.
The growth spurt as children move into adolescence needs plenty of kilojoules and nutrients. For girls, this generally occurs around 10 to 11 years of age. For boys, it occurs later, at around 12 to 13 years.
Compared to other age ranges, older adults have the highest diet quality, with an HEI score of 63 out of 100.