Hunger And Poverty

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Bissou L Bahi Prof Dowdy English 111 Spring 2012 TOPIC: HUNGER AND POVERTY IN THE THIRD WORLD I. Introduction Hunger is a term which has three meanings (Oxford English Dictionary 1971) such as the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite. Hunger is not just the need to eat; hunger, as the word is used by food and health experts, can be defined as the continuing deprivation in a person of the food needed to support a healthy life. The more technical term is under nutrition. Over time, hunger slows physical and mental development in children and leaves them more vulnerable to illness and disease. For example, respiratory and diarrhea infections are common in undernourished children, and even diseases of vitamin A deficiency, which can cause blindness, anemia, caused by iron deficiency and goiter due to iodine deficiency. Undernourished adults lose weight, are progressively weakened, and become apathetic, less creative and imaginative, and more irritable. Although acute hunger or famine receives more attention from the world’s news media, it should be remembered that the great majority of hunger deaths come not from starvation but from nutrition-related sicknesses and diseases. Hunger, malnutrition and under nutrition are all terms used to describe aspects of this problem. There is an important difference between 'under nutrition' and 'malnutrition'. Under nutrition is quantitative and means that people do not get enough to eat whereas malnutrition is qualitative and means that a person’s diet is lacking the necessary amounts of certain elements that are essential to

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