Hunger in Mexico

I chose Mexico not only because I have been researching Mexico for previous assignments, but I have an "adopted" boy in Mexcio. I sponsor him...and have been for the last three years. Part of the reason he needed a sponsor was his lack of food due to living in poverty.  As a birthday gift one year, he and his family recieved new pots and pans to cook in. It was hard to believe that was a birthday gift!!  


Statistics:

• According to the 2008 findings of Mexico’s National Evaluation Council on Social Development (CONEVAL), nearly 49 million Mexicans—over 46 percent of the country’s population—suffered from some form of food insecurity at the time of research.
• Of these 49 million, 25.8 were subject to what is designated as “light food insecurity,” while 13.7 million suffered “moderate” such insecurity, and 9.3 million “severe.”
• Included within these 49 million are said to be 11.2 million individuals who consume less than the line at which CONEVAL marks the base-line of extreme material poverty, in addition to nearly 2 million “chronically malnourished” children.
• World-Bank statistics from 2006 show that 15.5% of Mexican children under 5 are stunted by malnutrition; for comparative purposes, this rate compares to a stunting-prevalence of 16.5% among children under 5 in Lebanon, or of 15.7% in Thailand.

Implications:

•  In children, hunger results in stunting and inhibits the ability to concentrate and learn.
• If prolonged, hunger in children can inhibit brain development; such effects, like those related to stunting, are permanent and irreversible.
• Hunger also contributes to weakened immune systems, and hence problematizes health outcomes.
•  In countries undergoing nutritional transition, suffering from food insecurity and hunger have a higher risk to develop obesity and a metabolic syndrome during adulthood, particularly if they show rapid catch-up growth.

 

What's being done?Mexican organizations have begun to come together after years of divisions to respond to the food crisis and fix the badly broken system. They recently succeeded in reforming the Mexican constitution to include the right to food.



http://intlibecosoc.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/hunger-a-specter-that-haunts-mexico/

http://fpif.org/nafta_is_starving_mexico/