Print this fact sheet
Get the facts about hunger and how it affects children and their families.
- One person in seven battles hunger every day.
- Approximately 963 million people across the world are hungry.
- More than 9 million children under age 5 die every year, and malnutrition accounts for more than one-third of these deaths. Most of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
- About 5.6 million deaths of children worldwide are related to under-nutrition. This accounts for 53 percent of the total deaths for children under 5.
- More than 140 million or 25 percent of all children in developing countries are underweight and at risk from the long-term effects of malnourishment.
- Nearly 15 percent of babies in developing countries are born with a low birth weight compared with only 7 percent of babies in industrialized countries.
- More than 6 million children die from malnutrition each year.
- Worldwide, 161 million preschool children suffer from chronic malnutrition.
- Already 923 million people worldwide are undernourished, and there are more than 9 million deaths related to hunger each year.
Sources: www.wfp.org, www.unicef.org, www.who.int, www.un.org