Hunger in Bangladesh

Hunger in Bangladesh is an issue that affects millions of citizens. In Bangladesh 40% of the country falls under three categories: hunger, starvation and chronic hunger.[1] Some of the side effects of hunger consists of: malnutrition, under nutrition, child stunting and child wasting.[1] According to UNICEF, 3 main outcomes are broken down as the following: underweight(moderately) 36.4%, stunting is at 41.3%, wasting is at 15.6%.[2] Child stunting is defined as a child being two standard deviations lower than average height for their age and child wasting is a child who is two standard deviations lower than average weight for height.[3]

Hunger is an issue that has stagnated over the years, yet Bangladesh has shown tremendous efforts towards hunger reduction in the last couple of years, particularly during one of their hardest times during the late 1970s,[4] although the early 2000s were also challenging.[5] During this famine period, many farmers had no idea how to provide food given the land lacked nutrients due to aggressive farming.[4]

Causes

Factors that contribute to the hunger over various states of Bangladesh is lack of resources and education.[6] BMC Public Health defines hunger as “Limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.[1]

Statistics

Hunger in Bangladesh middle and lower class population is growing at a fast rate compared to other south Asian countries and hunger is still an issue.[7] Bangladesh has improved economically but still faces national huge hunger problem with approximately 40 million close to starvation.[8] Global Hunger Index is ranking system that measures hunger globally, regionally, and by country.[9] Bangladesh currently ranks 90 out of 118 countries.[10] Children suffering from chronic hunger are dying every 5 seconds.[10]

Children

Food Security Nutritional Surveillance Project conducted studies vulnerable zones: coastal belt, eastern hills, hoar region, Padma chars, northern chars. In total there were 14,712 children from 6–59 months of aged who suffered of food insecurity.[1] Majority of the children who suffer from hunger live in rural areas making up 94% of the experiment.[1]

Adults

Hunger and malnutrition not only effect the children but also older individuals; a study in Matlab which is located 55 km south east of Dhaka 850 elderly people greater than 60 years of age were part of the survey data.[11] During the duration of the experiment 63 died due to hunger and 11 individuals migrated.[11] The results showed that due to hunger women were more likely to develop chronic illnesses.[11] The chronic illnesses that were developed were tied to the malnourishment they had as children.[11]

Impact

Food availability can have perception and behavioral consequences.[6] Trials were held in Gaibandha District in northwestern Bangladesh to study a household's food insecurity ranking.[6] Certain domains were established within 6-month period to measure food insecurity.[6]

  1. Security and predictability over food acquisition[6]
  2. Reduction in food quality and/or quantity[6]
  3. Socially acceptable behaviors or strategies to augment resources on credit from shops and borrowing food from relatives.[6]

Results were that 65% of the households were suffering from hunger had a woman as head of the house; 35% men were the head of the household.[6]

Gender bias

An outcome from Bangladesh suffering from hunger we see that in certain households there is a gender bias on who gets fed.[12] In small villages where males are held in a different standard parents will feed their son over their daughter.[12] Aside from effects of mother nature, it has also been recorded that the head of the household has a great impact in regards to the food consumption.[13] In Bangladesh women are still discriminated and are seen as inferior.[13] Household where females are the bread winner is correlated to less food on the table.[13] Women make up 32% of the individuals under the poverty line.[13] In some cases if the women in the household are educated it reduces their chance of starvation by 43% [12] In recent years women have mobilized to try reverse this trend.[13] Women in Bangladesh have arranged an organization to fight chronic hunger; a total of 145,000 women.[13] Their goal is to reduce the number of uneducated women and promote self value and show that women are just as capable of providing for their household.[13] Uneducated women are prone to earn a less than the average rate for women.[13] Overall these women are trying to eradicate chronic hunger among their children.[13] During this hard time the number of children and elders who dies increased by 30%.[4] It wasn't until the United States pressured Bangladesh politicians to help their farmers.[4]

References
  1. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1873498976
  2. "Statistics". UNICEF. Retrieved 2018-10-17.
  3. "Nutrition Definition".
  4. Sobhan, Rehman (1979). "Politics of Food and Famine in Bangladesh". Economic and Political Weekly. 14 (48): 1973–1980. JSTOR 4368187.
  5. Martin, 20 April 2015-Photo © WFP/Ranak. "UN World Food Programme". www.wfp.org. Retrieved 2018-12-14.
  6. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=109498802&site=ehost-live
  7. "A Closer Look at Hunger and Undernutrition in Bangladesh". Global Hunger Index – Official Website of the Peer-Reviewed Publication. Retrieved 2018-12-14.
  8. "UNICEF – Definitions". www.unicef.org. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
  9. "2017 Global Hunger Index: long-term progress in reducing hunger. Data Sharing helps equalize change in the food system | Agricultural Information Management Standards (AIMS)". aims.fao.org. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
  10. "A Closer Look at Hunger and Undernutrition in Bangladesh". Global Hunger Index – Official Website of the Peer-Reviewed Publication. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
  11. Ferdous, Tamanna; Kabir, Zarina Nahar; Wahlin, Åke; Streatfield, Kim; Cederholm, Tommy (2009-03-04). "The multidimensional background of malnutrition among rural older individuals in Bangladesh – a challenge for the Millennium Development Goal". Public Health Nutrition. 12 (12): 2270–8. doi:10.1017/s1368980009005096. ISSN 1368-9800. PMID 19257922.
  12. Kabeer, Naila (1991). "Gender dimensions of rural poverty: Analysis from Bangladesh". The Journal of Peasant Studies. 18 (2): 241–262. doi:10.1080/03066159108438451.
  13. "Bangladesh • The Hunger Project". The Hunger Project. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
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