The Thing That Could Kill Us All
Food is something that is vital for human existence. It makes our bodies function to its best, and sometimes we eat for pleasure. But without food there are extreme detrimental effects. Have you experienced the effects of a famine? Probably not because in our Western and so-called developed side of the world, most people have seemingly sustainable amounts of food. But in poorer countries, some people don’t have to imagine what it is like to not have enough food, that is what they experience daily.
The effect of COVID-19 in the UK
Only months ago, the nation was swept away into panic mode. In the midst of the pandemic, many were quick to stockpile food and other essentials in hopes of being able to stay as far away from the virus.
The shelves of once bustling shopping centres and supermarkets became deserted with not a toilet roll in sight.
For most people, a natural reaction to the lockdown would be to panic buy everything possible – who knows the outcomes that the virus could continue to hold? Curfews?
Luckily, new measures were soon implemented in place to prevent the starvation of less financially-stable families. One of these rules included how schools must provide anyone on free school meals with a £15 voucher to spend in any shop. In the UK, the situation was not as troubling as in LEDCs where external funding would have been more difficult.
The financial stock climate was not perfect – many had encountered huge inflations in prices where basic provisions such as hand sanitisers and toilet rolls, due to an overall demand.
“The global hand sanitizer market size valued at USD 2.7 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.6% from 2020 to 2027.”
Grand View Research, full report viewable here
DGSChapter interviewed a mother of four who told us: “I went to Asda’s to get some supplies, and to my surprise, all I could buy was a 500g packet of pasta, and having an insufficient amount of food at home, this pasta was really no use to my family.”
If you explore a supermarket now, you’ll find the toiletries aisles lined like a plush bed of roses; shops overstocked with toilet paper…
But instead with a stark difference – the price.
Natural Hunger
While we are talking about the effects of the pandemic in the UK, we must also consider countries that were starving before this whole pandemic swept the world.
In LEDCs such as Chad, we continually see extremely malnourished children that try to live their lives to the fullest, while we have children that start crying because they didn’t get the chocolate bar they wanted.
Corruption, swathed other nations across the world, as explored in our previous report is not much of a helping factor when it comes to poverty.
What are we doing to help?
A lack of food has been one of the most prominent issues in the world for a long time. In 2000, the United Nations set the Eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
- One of the goals aimed to completely eradicate world hunger and poverty, and they actually did this very well. By 2010, they had already reached their goal, and just six years later, statistics were published showing that the number of people living in poverty had fallen by 1.2 billion, since 1990.
Recently, nations have been trying their best to stop supplies going low. In countries such as Canada, they have pumped several billions of US dollars into the job industry so that people can self-isolate without going into starvation. 45% of child deaths under 5 years old, so wherever you are, whatever you are doing, however you are reading this, be grateful for what you have.
A joint article by DGSChapter journalists Ramadan and Kodi
Cover image by © Pikist
Infographic courtesy of the Food Aid Foundation