The Anti-Hunger Games

This blog is part of a series organized by The Huffington Post and the NGO alliance InterAction around the London 2012 Olympics.

As the London Olympics closed, a new race began -- the race to tackle malnutrition. This race will span over 30 countries and last four years until 2016 when Brazil hosts the next Olympic Games. This race has nothing to do with great feats of athleticism, but rather with great feats of moral and political courage. British Prime Minister David Cameron along with Vice President Michel Temer of Brazil started the race Sunday by announcing a plan to dramatically reduce the number of malnourished children born into and living in this world over the next four years.

It is a race we must win.

Every year a new generation of children is condemned to a life in which they fail to thrive -- never reaching their full physical, intellectual or economic potential. These children are stunted -- their bodies and brains irreversibly damaged by the ravages of malnutrition. Most of this damage is done very early in a child's life, often before he or she is even born. Today there are an estimated 170 million stunted children living throughout the world. They are victims of chronic malnutrition -- the grinding poverty of a diet that does not provide children with the nourishment they require to develop and thrive.

Unfortunately, malnutrition is as persistent as it is pervasive. Research has shown that malnutrition early in life has serious lifelong consequences and can even be passed down from one generation to the next. Stunted children have lower IQs, perform more poorly at school, are more susceptible to illness and earn less in their jobs as adults. This in turn makes it harder for individuals to work their way out of poverty and give their children the nutrition they need in order to grow into healthy, prosperous adults.

This is why it is critical to stop malnutrition before it starts.

Over the past few years, renowned scientists, researchers and economic experts have implored the world to focus more of its attention and resources on what happens during the critical 1,000 days between a woman's pregnancy and her child's 2^nd birthday. It is in these 1,000 days that the right nutrition serves as the foundational building block for the healthy development of children's brains and bodies and the healthy development of societies free of chronic hunger and poverty.

Thanks in part to the efforts of visionary leaders like U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, champions such as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and soccer superstar David Beckham, and advocates in the global Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement, an Olympic-sized spotlight is starting to shine on the for-too-long-neglected crisis of child malnutrition. Sunday's gathering of world leaders around the closing ceremonies of the London Olympics has the potential to change how the world fights hunger and poverty -- by finally giving all children everywhere the strongest possible start to their lives.

 

Comments

[psnyder325]

07:33 PM on 08/15/2012

This is a race we CANNOT win until we STOP the overbreeding of humanity. As long as we are so grossly overpopulated, we CANNOT stop people from starving. The earth is above its carrying capacity by far. By saving 100,000 children today, but not stopping them from breeding, we set up 1,000,000 of their children to starve 10 years from now. And the West is running out of resources to feed people...even our own. Birth control and easy, cheap abortion are the answers to many of the world's problems, combined with draconian taxes on those couples who have more than 2 children, and massive tax breaks for those who choose not to reproduce. But.....you said "political and moral courage," and there is none of either left in the world. We need to tell the Church to shut up and go away. We need to tell cultures that see children upon children as a blessing to stop breeding. We need to get rid of Republicans and Evangelicals and Catholics in the U.S. that are trying to limit or stop abortion and birth control here and abroad. THIS is what it will take. But we won't do, and famine, plague and disaster will have to do it for us.

[Fred Kokot]

04:15 PM on 08/15/2012

thanks mr welldone, this is a great idea! I will check what residual money i got,
could be austrian schilling, dutch guilders and german marks.

[welldone41]

12:34 PM on 08/14/2012

Everybody around the world has to show solidarity and support charity organizations, which care about important goals - join David Beckham. Did you know that you are able to donate to UNICEF without even charging your budget? For example old european vacation money (e.g. German mark, Spanish peseta) via mail. Change tomorrow with money from yesterday. More information: http://www.euromoney24.com/donations