How many times do we read a bunch of food stories from BuzzFeed or The Condé Nast Traveler? It’s probably one every day or, if we’re not such foodies, a few every week. Stories of food depravity don’t really cross our minds, do they? India is home to 194.6 million undernourished people, the highest number in the world as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This constitutes 15% of our population. But the facts about hungry and malnourished children are much more alarming. Although the report indicated that the number of underweight children decreased from 49.2 percent in 1990 to 30 percent in 2013, it is simply not enough. Unless all the non-governmental organizations in India strive to feed all the children in the country, this situation will not improve.
In fact, there have been improvements through the midday meal plan, tax breaks for non-governmental organizations, and various other government efforts to feed children in India. However, one in four children is malnourished. Take, for example, in a family of four children, one of them probably goes without eating frequently.
Let’s take a look at some facts about Indian children:
– About 27 million children are born each year in India.
– Every fifth child in the world is Indian
– India has 440 million children – more than the population of the American states
– Almost 2 million of these children do not reach the age of five. Reason? malnutrition
So how are we feeding these children? It is quite worrying that 3,000 children in India die every day due to poor diet related nutrition. To make matters worse, 24% of the deaths of children under five in the world are occurring in India and lack of food is one of the main causes. Unfortunately, our increased economic growth has somehow not produced higher food consumption or better diets. So while our overall rate of malnourished children has decreased, we are failing to do much more to feed the hungry. I wonder if one should be happy that we saved 70% of our children from malnutrition or sad that 30% of them are still in danger?
The need of the moment is to lend a helping hand to fight world hunger. Each of us has the power to make a big difference by supporting in our own little ways by participating in charity fundraising. A small contribution of 750 rupees can see a child spend an academic year full of nutritious midday meals at school. Feed a hungry child a full year’s worth of healthy, well-rounded meals and you’ll go a long way for that child, as it might be the only right meal in their entire day. If this sounds like you, donate to the charity now!
