Yesterday (16th October 2022) was the World Food Day and this year’s theme was “Leave No One Behind”. This day is celebrated to commemorate the foundation of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) by United Nations Organisation. It’s headquarter is in Rome, Italy and since its establishment in 1945 in Quebec City, Canada, they have been focusing in eradicating the hunger all over the world and trying to spread awareness on hunger and waste of food.
Leave NO ONE behind
This year’s theme was “leave NO ONE behind”, which means don’t leave anyone without food. Hunger is one of the biggest issues this entire planet is struggling to manage. Still there are many countries where people don’t get square meal a day to fill their stomach. In 2022, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, China and Croatia topped the list of the Global Hunger Index. It is very unfortunate to see that such well-settled and developed countries are among the top countries where people are hungry for food.
Whereas, it is even more surprising to see, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Central African Republic and Yemen are ranking the lowest in the Global Hunger Index. They have low population, but at the same time, the waste of food is comparatively less and people are getting enough food to live a healthy life.
Where India is standing in Global Hunger Index?
In 2021, India was on the 101 position and this year, India is on 107. This is very depressing to see that countries like Sri Lanka (64th), Bangladesh (84th), Nepal (81st) and Pakistan (99th) doing better than us as a nation in terms of managing hunger and nutrition. Recently, Pakistan was hit by a disastrous flood and Sri Lanka is still sailing through a deep political turmoil and the nation is technically went bankrupt. Nepal and Bangladesh always had the GDP less than us. But still they are doing much better than us and we are still failing.
Child Wasting Rate (low weight for height) in India is 19.3%, whereas it was 15.1% in 2014 and 17.15% in 2000. As per the statistics, it is the highest rate for any country in 2022. Undernourishment reached to 16.3% in 2019 – 2021, and it was 14.6% in 2018 – 2020. Almost, 224.3 million Indians are undernourished out of 828 millions of people across the world.
Though the child mortality (mortality rate below the age of 5) has reduced in India from 4.6% to 3.3% between 2014 and 2022. Child stunting (low height for age) has also reduced from 38.7% to 35.5% between 2014 and 2022. In terms of child obesity, India is on the 105th position. Anaemia in Indian women has increased drastically from 52.6% to 53% in 2020 compared to 2016. Women between the age of 15 and 49 are becoming anaemic due to the adulteration of food and lack of proper nutrition. Presently, India is meeting only 7 out of 13 global nutrition targets which is comprised of sodium intake, high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes.
My opinion
I know that I’m not an expert in the field of nutrition and not attached to UNO to conclude my opinions on global hunger index. But as a common person, I can see lot of unnecessary food wastage around me. These days, I’m a freelancer, but before COVID19 when I used to visit office regularly, I observed many of my fellow colleagues wasted tons of food at the office cafeteria. Every day, our cafeteria used to weigh and mention how many kilos of food went into the dustbin. But nobody paid attention and that’s why we failed to follow “leave no one behind”. We are honestly leaving millions of people behind.
We are fortunate that we are getting so much of varieties of food to eat. We are fortunate to get enough nutrition, but still we are falling behind. As per my observation, high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes are very common in men and women of upper middle class and aristocrats. They have enough wealth to maintain their health but still they are suffering from these diseases. Money doesn’t mark your social status and nutrition intake. A bit of humanity and kindness towards the less fortunate people will always help them to cope with these serious health concerns.