Questões

Read the text below.

                                      What is hunger?

      Acute hunger or starvation are often highlighted on TV screens: hungry mothers too weak to breastfeed their children in drought-hit Ethiopia, refugees in war-torn Syria queuing for food rations, helicopters airlifting high energy biscuits to earthquake victims in Haiti or Pakistan.

      These situations are the result of high profile crises like war or natural disasters, which starve a population of food. Yet emergencies account for less than eight percent of hunger's victims.

      Daily undernourishment is a less visible form of hunger – but it affects many more people, from the shanty towns of Jakarta in Indonesia and the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh to the mountain villages of Bolivia and Nepal. In these places, hunger is much more than an empty stomach.

      For weeks, even months, its victims must live on significantly less than the recommended 2,100 kilocalories that the average person needs to lead a healthy life.

      The body compensates for the lack of energy by slowing down its physical and mental activities. A hungry mind cannot concentrate, a hungry body does not take initiative, a hungry child loses all desire to play and study.

      Hunger also weakens the immune system. Deprived of the right nutrition, hungry children are especially vulnerable and  become too weak to fight off disease and may die from common infections like measles and diarrhea. Each year, almost 7 million children die before reaching the age of five; malnutrition is a key factor in over a third of these deaths


                            (Source: Levels and Trends in Child Mortality, IGME, 2012 in http://www.wfp.org).