Famine Fast Facts

Here is a look at famine, a severe and prolonged hunger in a significant portion of a region or country's population that results in malnutrition and death by starvation and disease.

To assess a country's food security, the United Nations uses the scale known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

Famine can stem from natural causes such as droughts, floods, earthquakes and plant disease. It can also stem from man-made causes such as wars, civil disturbances and deliberate crop destruction.

Famine results from a triple failure of food production, access to food and response.

Undernutrition - The outcome of prolonged insufficient food intake and/or low absorption of food consumed. This generally applies to energy levels, but may also relate to vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

Undernourishment or Chronic Hunger - The status of persons when food consumption regularly provides less than their minimum energy requirements. The average minimum energy requirement per person is about 1,800 kilocalories (kilocalories are commonly referred to as calories) per day. (The exact requirement is determined by a person's age, body size, activity level and physiological conditions such as illness, infection, pregnancy and lactation).

Malnutrition - A general term for a range of circumstances that inhibit good health, caused by insufficient or unbalanced food intake or from poor absorption of food consumed. The term refers to both undernutrition (food deprivation) and overnutrition (excessive food consumption with regards to energy requirements).