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There are two problems around the globe relating to nutrition, but they cover both sides of the same coin. On the one side, there’s acute malnutrition, which, according to Action Against Hunger affects over 19 million people with their lives hanging in the balance due to a lack of sufficient nutrition. On the other side, a global obesity epidemic that the World Health Organization has dubbed “globesity” currently affects more than 300 million people with health implications including stroke, cardiac problems, and types of diabetes.
Here we examine a handful of ways that the individual can help to reduce levels of malnutrition even at a small, local community level.
Orphanages in the Third World
For the individual, starting at the local level is an effective way to go. Orphans in third world countries like Cambodia, Indonesia and a number of African nations are crying out for funding to support young children who have been left without parents’ due to the Aids epidemic or another crisis.
While some of the funding does go toward maintaining the orphanage, paying for repairs to buildings, covering staffing costs, education and games for the children, most of the remainder pays for basic food to improve nutrition levels and proper supplementation. Without the financial support from individuals like you, these orphanages lack the resources to continue their mission to the fullest extent, leaving some children who badly need the help unsupported.
Direct Charity Support Through Donations
There are many different charities that have a global, regional, national or a niche focus. For instance, Oxfam aims to be one of the first aid organizations on the ground during a natural disaster where clean water, proper sanitation, and essential food are required urgently.
Charities like the aforementioned Action Against Hunger and the United Nations World Food Program are not centrally funded and focus intently on the problem of extreme hunger, under nutrition and acute malnutrition. The most badly affected regions around the world get their attention with over 80 million people being fed across 80 countries every year.
The United National Food Relief agency also provides food to those affected by sudden unrest who no longer have access to sources of quality food to feed themselves, and their families. Support of these types of charities addresses malnutrition directly, which enables these NGOs to organize sustained food programs on a per country basis when their funding is more predictable.
Understanding the Effects of Malnutrition Better
Having a better appreciation of the effects of the global malnutrition pandemic is useful in being motivated to provide assistance and finding new ways to do so. Other than the eventual risk of death due to a severe, prolonged limiting of sufficient calories to sustain life, there are many other consequences that occur over the short-term too. The lack of proteins and energy sources along with missing micronutrients including zinc, iron and vitamins increases the likelihood of developing a dangerous infection. Communicable diseases spread more easily when nutrition is poor too.
The reduced energy from a calorie deficit creates a spiral effect where brain function necessary to both make smart decisions and perform activities needed to generate an income to support oneself becomes impaired. Therefore, addressing the issue early before this cycle begins is critical because a family’s breadwinner is quickly unable to support their partner and their children once it starts.
There is much that we can all do to help needy people around the world with a nutrition-related problem. The causes of malnutrition are numerous and often out of the control of local people who are caught off-guard. This makes it especially important that affected people are given the aid that they are unable to provide themselves.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
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