Explainer: What (actually) is hunger?

But one little word contains a lot of different meanings, especially when we consider the difference between how we feel when we’re late to have lunch and the global issue we’re addressing in the countries where hunger rates are not only high but also deadly. Read on to learn more. 

The Food and Agriculture Organisation lays out a practical definition of hunger: 

This may not be new information, but it’s helpful to have in mind when we talk about hunger as a larger issue. Important in this FAO definition is that it recognises that hunger is a spectrum: We all get hungry, but for some people that experience is the rule versus the exception. That’s when it becomes a problem. 

Hunger is a broad concept, focused more on the physical and psychological experience of going without food than on the more quantifiable nutritional aspects and physical outcomes we associate with good nutrition. That’s where a few other terms come in handy: 

Those are a lot of words, but they all work together to create and maintain the current global hunger crisis. If a person, family, or community doesn’t have the access they need to sufficient and nutrient-rich food, a momentary hunger can escalate into one or more forms of malnutrition.

For many, especially young children, immunocompromised people, and elders, this can be a death sentence. It’s not the hunger itself that’s the real killer; it’s usually conditions that are easier to develop and harder to cure as a result of malnutrition. Not enough energy and nutrients means that people’s immune systems are more susceptible to communicable diseases. Areas with high hunger crises also tend to have other public health issues, such as tainted water or a lack of adequate sanitation infrastructure. If an outbreak of cholera or diarrhoea hits, the effect can be catastrophic. 

“Famine” is a word that is often used (and misused) for emotional or metaphoric effect to describe food crises of varying size and scope. 

There are, however, clear criteria for what constitutes a famine. A famine is declared when: 

• 20% of a population are suffering extreme food shortages
• 30% of children under the age of 5 are suffering acute malnutrition
• The death rate of an area has doubled, or two people (or four children) out of every 10,000 people die each day

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is the organisation tasked with monitoring countries and regions facing famine or famine-like conditions. We rely on their data to know when this is happening.

There are a few different ways of measuring hunger that lead to different ways of talking about how many “hungry” people are in the world. It’s a multidimensional issue, so no one number is going to give us all of the information we need to know.

The IPC focuses on food security, and rates countries and regions on a scale of 1 to 5: 

Other organisations look at other indicators. In measuring hunger for the peer-reviewed Global Hunger Index each year, Concern and partner Welthungerhilfe look at four key indicators: 

• The percentage of undernourished people.
• The percentage of children (under the age of 5) who suffer from wasting.
• The percentage of children (under the age of 5) who suffer from stunting.
• The mortality rate for children under 5.

All of these terms are admittedly very clinical ways of looking at a problem that has severe ramifications for people living in dire circumstances. However, this is just one way of looking at the problem, and a necessary one if we’re going to make progress in ending hunger. 

While overall levels of hunger around the world had been going down since 1980, we’ve started to reverse course following the COVID-19 pandemic, an intensification of the climate crisis, and increased conflict. Today, one out of every 10 people still moves between Phases 3, 4, and 5 of food insecurity, and it’s important to know who is moving where so we can focus on the most urgent cases accordingly. 

Much like the cycle of poverty, hunger is also a cyclical issue, where people move in and out of different phases throughout a year or a lifetime. Hunger doesn’t define a person as much as it does their current circumstances. However, the more it continues, the more likely it will permanently affect that person’s future. 

As we mentioned earlier, hunger doesn’t work alone. From cholera to conflict, it’s an intersectional issue and one that we have to treat as such in order to sustainably end it. 

Concern’s current nutrition strategy focuses on many of these intersectionalities, designing programmes that respond to both sides of the coin. In addition to providing frontline food assistance and longer-term solutions in conflict settings, we also focus on these four key areas of nutrition:

From Afghanistan to Yemen, Concern’s Health and Nutrition programmes are designed to address the specific, intersectional causes of hunger and malnutrition in each specific context. Our projects often combine two or more of the following areas of focus: agriculture and climate response, maternal and child health, education, livelihoods, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). 

We played a key role in developing Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM), which has been recognised by the World Food Programme as the gold standard for treating malnutrition. Other recent successes, like Lifesaving Education and Assistance to Farmers (LEAF) have seen entire communities not needing humanitarian food aid for the first time in decades due to holistic and systemic shifts in agricultural practices and community care. 

Last year alone, Concern reached 9 million people with health and nutrition programmes in 21 countries. Your support can help us to do even more in the year ahead.