Global Hunger and Global Obesity

Global Hunger and global obesity are 2 extreme halves of the same social issue of how to feed the whole world. Obesity being caused by the availability of cheap unhealthy foods and Hunger being caused by poverty.

Facts:

Every year 15 million children die of hunger

For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years

Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!

The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you've entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation. Over 4 million will die this year.

One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. United Nations Food and Agriculture

Globally, there are more than 1 billion overweight adults, at least 300 million of them obese.

Facts:

Obesity and overweight pose a major risk for chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, and certain forms of cancer.

The key causes are increased consumption of energy-dense foods high in saturated fats and sugars, and reduced physical activity.

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, with more than 1 billion adults overweight - at least 300 million of them clinically obese - and is a major contributor to the global burden of chronic disease and disability.

Often coexisting in developing countries with under-nutrition, obesity is a complex condition, with serious social and psychological dimensions, affecting virtually all ages and socioeconomic groups.

The solution to this problem has been designed by Ellen Gustafson.

Ellen Gustafson co-founded FEED Projects in 2007, she created a bag of which when purchased fed one child for a whole year. The funds of this program were then donated to the UN World Food Program (WFP).

This contemporary design is the solution or result of this global food crisis. On the one hand you have people eating too much food and on the other people dying of malnutrition for lack of food. Gustafson being a former WFP employee supported the mission to provide free school lunches in developing countries, this not only got them the food they needed but the education needed to provide them with a better chance in the future.

FEED also launched special bags when the earthquake struck Haiti. These funds went to the rebuilding of the schools there.

All FEED products are made as eco-friendly as possible. The bags are made with high-quality, 100% organic cotton and natural burlap.

The goal of FEED Projects is to market and sell as many FEED bags as possible and to FEED and educate the world's 400 million hungry children.

In May 2010, Gustafson launched The 30 Project – another contemporary designed solution project that is designed to stimulate a change in the way we produce and distribute food over the next 30 years. This movement’s aim is to provide healthy and balanced meals to all thus cancelling out the two extremes of the global food issue (hunger and obesity).

The 30 Project is a new way to understand and change the food system.

Basically, over the past 30 years our food system has changed dramatically, through poor agricultural production there has been an increase in global hunger and global obesity and the 30 project is the plan Gustafson has created to turn around this problem over the next 30 years. These problems cam about through a decrease in the US’s agricultural aid abroad and the availability of cheap and unhealthy processed foods. The aim of the 30 project is to make healthy and affordable food available to everyone around the world.

The 30 project wants to unite organizations around the world that have similar objectives. Many of the organizations around the world are too busy working hard for the cause that they don’t notice that together united as one they will make a bigger more significant difference, together being much stronger they can work together to create a more healthy and sustainable global food system.

A supporter of the 30 Project is Jamie Oliver, with his Ministry of Food campaign that was most recently in America. Where he visited unhealthy schools around the US that where serving unhealthy food to kids everyday for every meal of the day for example pizza for breakfast and such. Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food is coming to Australia next to continue the campaign against obesity and diabetes. The main aim of Oliver's Ministry of Food initiative is to give people, particularly those in lower socio-economic communities, the skills and knowledge they need to improve their diet.

"Children around the world are suffering from malnutrition, despite there being enough food for everyone. "

Ellen Gustafson

30 reasons to support the 30-year project

1. 850 million hungry in 1980

2. Over 1 billion hungry today.

3. The number of hungry in America in 1980 was 20 million. That number today is 49 million.

4. Average number of food crises per year in the world in 1980 was 15. The average today is 30.

5. Every 6 sec a child dies of hunger related causes. 1 of 4 children in developing countries are at risk. That's 150 million and growing.

6. The USDA estimated that 16.7 million children lived in food insecure households in 1980.

7. Even mild undernourishment during critical growth periods in childhood can adversely impact behavior, school performance, and cognitive development.

8. Financial impact of undernourishment to economic development in the US each year is between 20 to 30 billion.

9. 1 billion people on Earth are overweight.

10. Since 1980, obesity rates for adults have doubled. Rates for children have tripled.

11. 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese.

12. 1/3 of American Children are overweight or obese. Among children 12-19, these rates have tripled since 1980.

13. Since 1978, soda consumption has doubled among teenage girls and tripled among teenage boys. 1/5 of all infants are now soda drinkers.

14. Whole grain consumption in the U.S. has dropped 9% since 1980. Refined grain consumption has risen by 41%, that's an extra 30 lbs of fats and 19% more sugar a year.

15. Up to 80% of overweight children may have a lifetime of increased health risks, primarily cardiovascular disease - the leading killer in America.

16. Childhood obesity may cut 2-5 years off the lifespan of an average child in America – marking the first generation to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

17. The U.S. spends $150 billion a year treating obesity related disease - nearly 10% of all medical spending.

18. In areas of North America, the UK, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, Australasia and China, obesity rates have more than tripled since 1980.

19. Internationally, the WHO projects that by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight. Over 700 million will be obese.

20. 30% of the Global population is malnourished.

21. 30 years ago, Haiti grew all the rice it needed. Fast forward to now - rice production in Haiti has been cut in half.

22. In Africa, production of corn has fallen 14% since 1980. The number of malnourished has doubled.

23. During this same period, the U.S. cut its agricultural development assistance to Africa by 85%.

24. The U.S. now spends 20 times more on food aid to Africa than it does helping Africans develop ways to feed themselves.

25. Solutions lie not in feeding the world, but in allowing the world to feed itself. Switching to sustainable farming increases harvests in developing nations by an average of 73%.

26. In the early 1980s, tight money and high interest in the U.S. burst agriculture's speculative bubble. Farmland value dropped by nearly 60% in the Midwest alone.

27. From 1979 to 1986, 1 million jobs were lost in farming in the U.S. Farm poverty rates doubled to 20%.

28. The 1981 Farm Act set high price standards, rendering US agriculture too costly to compete on the global market. Thousands of people's lives were unraveled.

29. As population increases, the FAO says worldwide food output must double by 2050 to meet surging demand.

30. 1 Billion Hungry + 1 Billion Overweight = The World Today.