The world has made impressive gains in past decades towards ensuring food and nutritional security to all, but tens of millions of people in many countries still do not have adequate food for leading a healthy and active life. This is so even in countries with sufficient food availability on a per capita basis. While reduced in its most severe forms, undernutrition in varying degrees continues to affect millions around the world.
According to estimates1 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), approximately 854 million people in the world are chronically undernourished with no access to sufficient food to meet even minimum energy needs. In 2005, 16.1percent of children below five years of age were reported to be severely malnourished with below normal height and weight for their age group.2 Almost half of these 90 million children live in South Asia. Besides suffering from protein energy malnutrition (PEM), many are anaemic and most have a low birth weight. A much higher percentage of children suffer from mild-to-moderate undernutrition. The prevalence of malnutrition increases during seasonal food shortages and in times of natural and man-made disasters.
Commitment and a joint effort by all sections of society are essential to combat hunger and malnutrition. The fight against hunger has to start early in life by informing and educating young minds about the “what, who, why and how” of food insecurity. Accordingly, FAO, in partnership with other UN agencies including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, has launched “Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger” (FMFH) global education initiative.
The FMFH initiative aims to transform children into key agents of change by informing and educating them about the problem of hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity, and what can be done to eradicate this. The initiative is based on the premise that teachers can inculcate a sense of caring and commitment in children, motivating and enabling them to be active participants in the fight against hunger. This can also sow the seeds of political commitment in future generations to ensure food security.3
The value of interventions seeking to enhance knowledge and awareness of nutrition leading to nutritional improvement has been recognized for decades. The World Bank’s first community nutrition loan to Indonesia in the 1970s is widely cited for significantly improving the nutritional status of 40 percent of the targeted children through nutrition education alone and without the transfer of other tangible resources.4
Central to the initiative is the sharing of information among students and teachers with the aim of encouraging an exchange ideas and experiences among youth around the world. It is believed that if children from different cultures and circumstances around the world learn about the problems of global hunger and malnutrition early in life, this will make them want to work together to remove hunger from the world. This will also develop responsible global citizenship in the younger generation. School teachers have an important role in making children realize they have an important role in ensuring a world free from hunger.
1FAO. 2006. State of Food Insecurity in the World. Rome, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
2 >-3 standard deviation below the median of the international reference population. UNICEF.2005. The State of the World’s Children, Children under Threat. New York, United Nations Children’s Fund.
3Menza, V. & Spagnoli, F. 2003. Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger: A Global Educational Initiative for Children. Rome, FAO.
4Webb, P. & Block, S. 2004. Nutrition information and formal schooling as inputs to child nutrition. Economic Dev. and Cultural Change, 52:4.
