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The term inanition [2] refers to the symptoms and effects of starvation. Starvation by outside forces is a crime according to international criminal law and may also be used as a means of torture or execution. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), hunger is the single gravest threat to the world's public health.
Food insecurity is defined at a household level, of not having adequate food for any household member due to finances. The step beyond this is very low food security, which is having six (for families without children) to eight (for families with children) or more food insecure conditions in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Security Supplement Survey.
Starvation response in animals (including humans) is a set of adaptive biochemical and physiological changes, triggered by lack of food or extreme weight loss, in which the body seeks to conserve energy by reducing metabolic rate and/or non-resting energy expenditure to prolong survival and preserve body fat and lean mass.
Energy intake is measured by the amount of calories consumed from food and fluids. [1] Energy intake is modulated by hunger, which is primarily regulated by the hypothalamus, [1] and choice, which is determined by the sets of brain structures that are responsible for stimulus control (i.e., operant conditioning and classical conditioning) and cognitive control of eating behavior.
Physiologist Ancel Keys was the lead investigator of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. He was directly responsible for the X-ray analysis and administrative work and the general supervision of the activities in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene which he had founded at the University of Minnesota in 1940 after leaving positions at Harvard's Fatigue Laboratory and the Mayo Clinic.
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. [11] [12] Specifically, it is a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients which adversely affects the body's tissues and form.
The rate of hunger and malnutrition in female headed households was three times the national average at 30.2 percent. [citation needed] According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 10 percent of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean are affected by hunger and malnutrition. [53]
This increase in hunger may be due to slow economic growth, low employment and a loss of government financial support following the pandemic. [175] The social grants given by the government along with the child support grants, school food initiatives, and the Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Programme have all been influential in lowering ...