About World Hunger & Overpopulation

World hunger and overpopulation are two of the most important issues that humanity faces. Major international nonprofit organizations and international coalitions take steps to alleviate the problem, but these problems cannot be easily solved. A study by Worldhunger.org in 2010 found that the world's hungry number about 925 million, with most living in Asia, Africa and the Pacific region. On the other hand, overpopulation occurs all over the world, and even the most developed countries suffer from it.

Definitions

• According to Worldhunger.org, world hunger takes into account the number of people who are malnourished, or people who lack the average nutrition and food intake required for a healthy human being.

  On the other hand, "overpopulation" is related to the population of humans based on the environment they live in and the resources it offers. No matter how big a country is, if its environment cannot support its human population, it is considered overpopulated. Optimumpopulation.org defines overpopulation as the ability of a country to support itself without needing any outside resources. If a particular country requires imports to survive, that particular country is overpopulated.

Top Countries with Hunger Problems

• Hunger problems are often connected to poverty and not just overpopulation. According to the Global Hunger Index report in 2009, the top countries facing serious hunger issues include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Burundi, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Angola, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Rwanda. Most of these countries are within the African continent, where food production is difficult because of environmental, social and political hindrances.

Top Overpopulated Countries

• Based on the definition given by Optimumpopulation.org, some of the top overpopulated countries in 2010 include Singapore, Israel, Kuwait, Korea Republic, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Lebanon, Iraq and Belgium. These countries are not included on the top countries having hunger issues because most of them have a competitive global economy, allowing them to import food and other supplies from other countries.

Distribution of Resources

• According to Worldhunger.org, despite the prevalent world hunger and overpopulation, "the world produces enough food to feed everyone." The same report indicated that the main problem of why world hunger occurs is because a lot of hungry countries cannot generate enough financial resources to buy food and develop their land.

  Overpopulation.org also reports that, "The richest 20 percent of humanity consume 86 percent of all goods and services, while the poorest fifth consume just 1.3 percent." World hunger and overpopulation can then be considered as two separate issues, meaning focusing on the proper distribution of resources will help alleviate at least some of these issues.