SDG2: No Hunger
Figure 1. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: No Hunger
Source: Figure reproduced from United Nations Communications Materials (n.d.).
It's 2am in the morning. I can't sleep because it's hot in my tiny, overpriced studio in Twin Dolphin. It's boiling, not because it is summer, but because my 8 litre slow cooker is halfway through cooking up 10 meals worth of chick peas, black beans and lentils, along with a smattering of vegetables whose freshness is dubious. I don't ask for perfection when it comes to veggies now. If I can't see the mould and they aren't too black, I pray like hell the 16 hours of boiling kills what could kill me. I'm not complaining. To me, this is luxury. During COVID-19, I didn't have the education or the money to feed myself even this much. Welcome to my personal battle with hunger. This is my drive behind tackling Sustainable Development Goal 2 or SDG2: No Hunger (United Nations n.d.).
SDG2: No Hunger
Hunger isn't just hunger. Hunger is a multidimensional issue. It looks like food insecurity, malnutrition and starvation. It arises from multiple causes and causes other problems. In essence, it is known as a wicked problem (Head 2022). SDG2: No Hunger isn't just about stalling that gnawing, churning feeling in your by snaffling a rich in cholesterol, sugar and salt snack. It is about stopping hunger, ensuring food security, enhancing nutrition and supporting sustainable agriculture everywhere for everyone (United Nations n.d.).
Though economic factors influence food insecurity (Drewnowski 2022), they also arise from other interconnected factors. They arise from inequality, food supply chain issues, climate change, conflict, discrimination, domestic and family violence, power disparities, ineffective government and a lack of education on how to prepare food, along with what is nutritious food and what is not (Action Against Hunger 2024).
Hunger has a myriad of consequences. The least of which is an empty belly that claws at your intestines and begs for fulfillment. It leads to undernutrition, malnutrition, stunting and deficiencies in micronutrients (Webb et al., 2018). The nutritional and micronutritional deficiencies lead to a myriad of health problems, including mental health. I've lived this experience and shouldn't have to cite it, but I will anyway. Candice (2021) compiled a group of studies into a review that discussed the evidence found which shows a positive correlation between hunger and mental health issues. This positive correlation is not good news. It is bad. It means that food insecurity or a poor diet impacts how we think and feel. Hunger is not a good thing, for anybody.
SDG2: No Hunger is about tackling this issue on both a global and local scale to ensure that people do not suffer from this. The Gnawnster, who you will meet elsewhere, is a viscious beast who is as relentless as he is prolific upon this great globe of ours. It isn't only up to the powers-that-be to tackle SDG2: No Hunger. It is up to each and everyone of us to arm ourselves with swords of carrots and shields of broccoli to carve The Gnawnster from the Earth.
Resources on SDG2: No Hunger
If you click on those delightful, empty plates beneath, you will find attached some PDF resources available to view on your browser and download provided by the United Nations (n.d.) on their SDG's Communications Materials webpage. These PDFs relate to SDG2: No Hunger. The icons were created by an AI prompt in the Wix AI generator.