Food Insecurity and Malnutrition in America

Hunger and malnutrition is a serious matter in america and also in a various amount of other countries. The majority of people facing this problem are usually considered the “minority group” (mainly african american and hispanic), that have to deal with poverty within their “Ghetto” community. Being raised in a community of poverty can cause an effect on many children's lives because of the poor foods they consume; which can create a large amount of disadvantages, because they lack of resources. The government provides food stamps for the poor in america, mainly for people who cannot sustain the average wage. On the other side of the spectrum, there is malnutrition in other countries. For example, Eritrea faces a drought, the People have been forced to draw water from pits dug into the Mereb river, meanwhile in Mexico, the people face anemia, overweight and obesity. These foreign countries face poverty in ways that we can't imagine. In order to help these communities progress in a positive way, people donate money, clothes, and hygiene utensils to support the people in need. It's important to consider that america and the foreign countries both face poverty, some similar, but it usually tends to be more severe in a foreign country, because the less resources a community has means the more disadvantages they get. So what's The differences between how the US and Eritrea handle hunger?

Most of america’s immigrants were the ones who usually suffered through poverty. Although the u.s. government provides food stamps, which helps provide for the people suffering malnutrition, it’s simply still not enough to support a family. The communities in the u.s. Are so poor to the point where, they cant afford to have a grocery store with fresh produce; instead they have food desserts. According to Jennifer Wehunt “food desert” means “a concentrated area short on access to fresh meat and produce, but flush with the packaged and fried yield of convenience stores and fast-food outlets”(Wehunt 216). This is a provided fact of a cause of malnutrition and still, the gov. decides to ignore most of the signs of needed support; The gov. only sends a small amount of funds monthly, only for food to the ones in hunger.

Meanwhile, Eritrea faces one of the highest poverty rates in the world. Sixty Nine percent of the Eritrean descent live in poverty and they were the ninth poorest country in the world in the year of 2017. In the writing, “The Disappearance of Hunger in America”, Patricia Allen say’s that “hunger is a result of poverty” (Allen 225). Most people in Eritrea growing up had no say in where they wanted to be raised; because of the war they had against ethiopia, a lot of Eritreans (including my mom) had to evacuate their homes and make there way to Sudan. Once they arrived to Sudan they had to restart their lives with no money to maintain. When Elise L. Riley (the author of “Hunger in Eritrea”) says, “the Eritrean government has focused on improving agricultural infrastructure in order to decrease food insecurity, and though hunger has declined during that period” (Riley). This show that it’s difficult for the government to implement lasting changes to prevent hunger in eritrea.

Although america is a lot different from eritrea, they still have common similarities due towards poverty. Their both poor and there are many homeless people wandering the streets, but the difference between the two’s hunger is that america’s poverty actually has food most of the time but mainly containing junk food or fried goods, on the other hand, eritrea's poverty level is so ridiculous that most people can't eat, and if they did eat they had to hunt for it. When Wehunt quotes A. Edward Davis Jr saying “What we need, we have to support”(Wehunt). If our communities can all have the same mindset as Davis, then maybe we can help others in need to make the world a better place, that’s why this issue is greatly important.

In conclusion, the u.s. and eritrea each handle their hunger in similar ways, but eritrea faces far more struggle than america does.The u.s. supports the people living in poverty by sending food stamps monthly, but still isn’t enough to sustain a family; on the other side Eritrean gov. doesn’t have the same energy of support, just because of the fact that they have no funds to help. Therefore, the american gov. needs to donate more funds to foreign countries and send more money monthly to the people who can’t afford to live in the united states. If the people can come together and make this happen the future of the world will become brighter, if we cannot defeat or simply attempt to lower the poverty rates, it will only get higher and cause a world catastrophe later on in the future. Overall maintaining in a community of poverty is extremely difficult and the people at donation centers and the national government should take more matters into their hands and step up. 

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