World hunger and your health and wellness
by/margit cathrine moller

Here is the number that should alarm everyone: 925 million. That is the number of people who are considered malnourished and/or undernourished. Considering that there are 7 billion people in the world, roughly this figure means that 1 out of 7 is hungry.

But this is the surprising number, of the 925, 19 million belong to first world country like US and Canada. Food prices have skyrocketed to the point that people cannot afford nutritious food and settle for cheaper, less nutritious ones.

Hunger is a poverty issue and it is also a political issue as some governments prefer to use their lands for other purposes aside from food production. Lately, hunger is fast-becoming an environmental issue as climate change is increasingly viewed as the current and future cause of hunger and poverty. Floods, earthquakes, tsunami, heat waves, tornadoes and a host of other environmental disasters affect food production all over the world – resulting to one of the most alarming impending crisis: food shortage.

Because I am a firm believer of personal empowerment, I assert that hunger is also a personal issue. Aside from the fact that everything we do now – how we travel, what we do at home, what kind of work we do – will eventually affect the environment, world hunger will affect our health and wellness.

We are what we eat. What we have in our plate will affect our physical health, mental stability and our emotional wellness. The quality of our food will have direct effect on our sense of fulfillment, our mood (hungry and malnourished people tend to be irritable and prone to anger), and our level of energy.

A conscious decision, for example, to cut down on red meat and eat more locally-grown vegetables (organically grown at home preferably) is beneficial to your health, to the economy and to the environment.

A commitment to eat raw food as much as possible helps to cut down fuel consumption and retains much of the nutrients in our vegetables and fruits. It also helps your budget.

There are so many things we can do to make sure that in our own way, we address the issue of world hunger and at the same time take care of our health and wellness.
How about you?
What are you doing to curb world hunger?