HUNGER MANAGEMENT

A search in the ‘Wikipedia’ would give you the definition of hunger as : “Hunger is a sensation that represents the physiological need to eat food.”

Biologists would explain you the reason of the ‘hunger sensation’ as:  The fluctuation of leptin and ghrelin hormone levels results in the motivation of an organism to consume food. When an organism eats, adipocytes trigger the release of leptin into the body. Increasing levels of leptin result in a reduction of one's motivation to eat.After hours of non-consumption, leptin levels drop significantly. These low levels of leptin cause the release of a secondary hormone, ghrelin, which in turn re-initiates the feeling of hunger.

But does anyone have an explanation to the term ‘HUNGER MANAGEMENT’? Well, from the term itself,  it is understood that it deals in managing the ‘sensation’ of hunger, but what does it signifies? A literary explanation could be: ‘the art of managing the sensations till the time we do not consume foods’.  It is managing the need of food till the time we get it.

This term surprisingly is known by the people who are under diet. They learn to manage their hunger as to lose weight.

Let’s look at the opposite side of the coin: If people under diet have learnt, how to manage hunger, can’t it be taught to the millions of people who sleep empty stomach every night?  Well obviously these people do not have a diet-chart to follow, but yes, they have a burning hunger to manage that churns out their stomach every single moment, that they are living.

Poverty and hunger have a relation since time known. People who do not have enough resource to buy food are literally termed as ‘hungry poor people’. But the real scene is far uglier. ‘Malnutrition’ and ‘Hunger’ are the number one risk to health worldwide — greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined!

Some facts that might raise a few eyebrows...

              Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life.      That's about one in nine people on Earth!

   Asia is the continent with the hungriest people - two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia    has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly.

        One out of six children - roughly 100 million, in developing countries is underweight.

              In some countries, one child in three is underweight!

The good news here is that “HUNGER” IS “SOLVABLE”. The world produces enough to feed the entire global population of 7 billion people. And yet, one person in eight on the planet goes to bed hungry each night. The BIG question is , ‘WHY’ ?  Well, this is yet to be reasoned out.

The sole reason of this write-up is to invoke in us that hunger is un-manageable. No therapy, no exercise can lead us to manage it. It is natural and even medical science doesn’t have any solution to it.

The countries should unite on this issue. When nations work together to solve hunger and invest in good nutrition, they increase productivity and create economic opportunities.

To all the readers, when you take your dinner tonight think of a hungry child and-“do not waste food”. Who knows, that might be able to restore life to a hungry dying child.