7 Seconds
Every 7 seconds a child dies of hunger related causes. 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi, 5 Mississippi, 6 Mississippi, 7 Mississippi. That is an extremely short interval of time, especially when you consider that there are 84,600 seconds in a day and 31,556,926 seconds in a year. Every year more than 5 MILLION children die because of hunger.
So, why so many? What other hunger related causes are included besides flat and simple starvation? Hunger impacts every area of a child’s life. A child who is slightly malnourished, not even starving, just not receiving prefect nutrition is FOUR TIMES more likely to die from an infectious disease. Hungry children are less likely to stay in school, and even if they attend they don’t do well. The lack of education traps them in the vicious cycle of poverty for the rest of their lives. 1 in 4 children don’t get their necessary nutrition.
But all children, all people SHOULD be able to get enough food. There is enough food in the world for all the people in it. Wealthy countries have enough of a surplus to cover the deficit of the poorer countries. So, if all of the resources of the world were combined there is MORE than enough to feed everyone in the world.
The problem is distributing this food. Children are starving NOW. They are dying EVERY 7 SECONDS!!! So why don’t they get the food? Why does our society not “care”?
It’s uncomfortable to hear the statistics. We manage to push these world problems to the back of our minds. We live in our comfortable homes, eat more than enough food, and generally live pretty good lives and we forget that there are people who continually struggle with where they will sleep and where their next meal is coming from. While an average American child might worry about getting “the best” new video game, a child in a third world country worries about getting food and other necessary tools of survival. The upper and middle class of our world prefer to live in comfortable oblivion instead of facing facts.
Maybe one person alone cannot end hunger. But if 100 people, 1,000 people, 1 million people, 1 BILLOIN people, decide that it is important, vital, and urgent to end hunger, it would be easy. So no matter where you are or who you are, take action towards ending hunger and poverty. Even though you may only be one person, e a billion people cannot be reached, without one, and one, and one, and one, and one, and one, and one.
I don’t know about you, but I am not okay with the fact that a child dies EVERY SEVEN SECONDS, of a completely correctable problem. So take action, and change the world!
-Madeline Allen
