Starvation, malnutrition and consequent diseases are an all-too-familiar fixture in today's world. This article reports on the current situation and looks through the window of prophecy at the future. The present is bleak, but the future is fabulous!
by Cecil E. Maranville
You probably receive several ad flyers every week advertising the current bargains available at your abundantly stocked neighborhood supermarkets. The majority of the world's citizens do not yet enjoy such a blessing. Most of them are more concerned with finding something to eat at all.
Last month, we ran an article about the issue of whether the food supply is secure, "From Farm to Fork." This article is about another type of food security, the issue of securing food for your fork.
I want to start by focusing upon the children in the world who do not have enough to eat. We've all seen the heartrending pictures of malnourished children, likely from some sub-Saharan country.
One of my sons and I saw such graphic images on the news from a war-ravaged country in North Africa about 25 years ago. The horrifying images of infants with distended bellies and heads seemingly too large for their bodies—signs of severe malnutrition—were too much for my son. Tearfully, he asked, "Daddy, if they can get the TV camera there, why can't they get food to those kids?"
Ah, the innocence of a child. If only it were that simple. The government of the country was blocking international food aid for the starving, for they belonged to a tribe that opposed the government. The children were innocent, yet they likely died shortly after we saw their pictures.
The UN created UNICEF (the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) in 1946 to provide food, clothing and health care to European children after World War II. The UN extended its mandate indefinitely in 1953 to look after the well-being of the world's children.
An elementary school-sized population dies every two minutes
The world has not changed in the decades since my son and I saw that report. UNICEF says 29,000 children under 5 die every day from hunger-related causes or about three children every second (The State of the World's Children 2005, p. 9). About the population of a good-sized elementary school perished in the time that it took you to read this far in the article.
