World Hunger Education Service

World Hunger Education Service

Hunger is a term which has three meanings (Oxford English Dictionary 1971)

•The uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite. Also the exhausted condition caused by want of food

•The want or scarcity of food in a country

•A strong desire or craving

World hunger refers to the second definition, aggregated to the world level. The related technical term (in this case operationalized in medicine) is


malnutrition

Malnutrition is a general term that indicates a lack of some or all nutritional elements necessary for human health.

There are two basic types of malnutrition. The first and most important is protein-energy malnutrition--the lack of enough protein (from meat and other sources) and food that provides energy (measured in calories) which all of the basic food groups provide. This is the type of malnutrition that is referred to when world hunger is discussed. The second type of malnutrition, also very important, is micronutrient (vitamin and mineral) deficiency.


This is not the type of malnutrition that is referred to when world hunger is discussed, though it is certainly very important.
[Recently there has also been a move to include obesity as a third form of malnutrition. Considering obesity as malnutrition expands the previous usual meaning of the term which referred to poor nutrition due to lack of food inputs.2 It is poor nutrition, but it is certainly not typically due to a lack of calories, but rather too many (although poor food choices, often due to poverty, are part of the problem). Obesity will not be considered here, although obesity is certainly a health problem and is increasingly considered as a type of malnutrition.]