Hunger and poverty

"While poverty is undoubtedly a cause of hunger, hunger can also be a cause of poverty. In fact, hunger often deprives impoverished people of the one valuable resource that they can call their own - the strength and skill to carry out productive work.

Hunger in childhood impairs both mental and physical growth, crippling capacity to learn in school and earn at work. When they reach adulthood, evidence from household food surveys in developing countries shows that people with smaller and slighter body frames caused by undernourishment earn lower wages in jobs involving physical labour.

Widespread hunger impairs the economic performance not only of individuals but of entire nations. Studies conducted for the Asian Development Bank in India, Pakistan and Vietnam estimated that the combined effect of stunting and iodine and iron deficiency reduced GDP by 2 to 4 percent per year. Recent calculations by FAO suggest that halving the number of by 2015 would yield a value of more than US$120 billion per year by allowing people to live longer, healthier lives." [3]