Hunger around the world is up again for the third year in a row. According to an annual U.N. report, “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World,” 821 million people went hungry last year.
Whether they “failed to get enough nutrients to maintain a normal active life” or went for days without any food, 6 million more people were “undernourished” in 2016, NPR reported. This trend, which started in 2014 when the U.N. report confirmed a total of 783.7 million people went through severe food insecurity, is continuing to grow among adults and children. Now, roughly 11 percent of the world’s population is facing food insecurity.
Food insecurity, which is “defined as a family running out of food and going at least a day without eating, was up in every region of the world last year except for North America and Europe,” NPR reported. According to the U.N. report, 151 million children under the age of 5 are malnourished and, without the appropriate nutrients, are small for their age.
The U.N. report went on find a direct correlation between countries “hit hardest by extreme weather events” and hunger. Droughts, floods and storms worldwide have affected agriculture in these countries.
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