malnutrition

The House gave final congressional approval, 359-53, to a bill that calls for a comprehensive U.S. strategy to reduce hunger and malnutrition in developing nations. President Obama praised passage of the bill, which makes permanent the Feed the Future program, an early initiative of his administration.

The $250,000 World Food Prize, sometimes called the Nobel of agriculture, was awarded to four scientists for development and promotion of biofortified crops, bred to include vitamins and micronutrients. An estimated 10 million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America already have better diets due to the improved staple crops, "with a potential of several hundred million more in the coming decades," said the prize foundation.

As obesity becomes increasingly common in the U.S., food banks are trying to help their visitors manage diabetes as well as hunger, says The New York Times. Historically, food banks tried to satiate hunger with whatever food they could, even if it meant doling out chips and cans of sugary barbecue beans. But many of the people looking for food aid now suffer from poor nutrition and dangerous blood sugar levels, rather than too few calories.

High sugar and trans-fats in Indian food are turning the world’s second most populous country diabetic, while child malnutrition in the region is slowly retreating, the 2016 Global Nutrition Report said. The study found that diabetes, a deficiency that inhibits the body to effectively use insulin, affects 9.5 percent of India’s population, putting it ahead of the U.K. and the U.S., and on par with China. Furthermore, 2 percent of deaths in all age groups in India are a result of diabetes, the WHO said.

The leaders of the Group of Seven major advanced nations, meeting in Germany, said, "As part of a broad effort involving our partner countries, and international actors, and as a significant contribution to the post-2015 development agenda, we aim to lift 500 million people in developing countries out of hunger and malnutrition by 2030."

The eight-minute film "Man in a Maze" opens with an aerial view of fresh produce being dumped into a landfill at the Mexico-U.S. border, and ends with an aerial view of a community garden.

At the International Conference on Nutrition meeting in Rome, senior officials from 170 nations "made a number of concrete commitments and adopted a series of recommendations on policies and investments aimed at ensuring that all people have access to healthier and more sustainable diets," says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The National Geographic has photos from Houston, the Bronx and Osage, Iowa, to illustrate its story on "The new face of hunger." Writes Tracie McMillan, "The image of hunger in America today differs markedly from Depression-era images of the gaunt-faced unemployed scavenging for food on urban streets...In the United States more than half of hungry households are white, and two-thirds of those with children have at least one working adult—typically in a full-time job." A sociologist blames inadequate wages.

USAID announced a first-of-its-kind strategy to save 2 million children from chronic malnutrition or stunting over the next five years and to hold acute malnutrition below 15 percent in areas with humanitarian crises. USAID chief Rajiv Shah and National Security Advisory Susan Rice unveiled the initiative at an annual food conference sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.