The famine in the Horn of Africa just gets bigger and bigger, with no end in sight.
According to the US government, an estimated 29,000 children under the age of five have already perished, with more than 600,000 additional children so malnourished that this death toll seems like just the beginning.
According to the World Health Organization, 171,000,000 children were stunted as a result of malnutrition in 2010. In addition to physical stunting, these children will also experience a lag in neurological development, making learning a challenge.
How can we as a global community have hundreds of thousands of starving children on this earth and neglect their plight?
Images of these children have been keeping me up at night. After some discussion in the office, we came up with an idea as to how we could help.
We are all concerned about our economies, but…at least most of us know where our next meal is coming from.
If anything, we are facing an obesity crisis rather than a food shortage crisis.
So we came up with an idea. We wanted to find a reasonable, long-term way of achieving a healthy weight. At the same time, we wanted to take action to help our neighbors in East Africa who are starving.
Brian Wansink, PhD, Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, really intrigued me with all of the easily applicable “lessons” from his food studies.
In an effort both to get the word out on Dr. Wansink’s findings and take action to alleviate this heartbreaking situation in the Horn of Africa, I am issuing the following challenge:
- Pledge to make three changes in your eating habits for ten days (you can pick from the list we provide or write in your own ideas).
- If 2,500 people sign up by Monday, August 15th at midnight, we’ll donate $25,000 to relief efforts in the Horn of Africa.
Please join me in this quest to transform our health, empower our patients, and join the movement to send urgently-needed relief to the people of East Africa.
Together, we can make a difference.
I welcome your comments below.
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Ruth,
How timely that you should publish this today. My girls (both adopted from extremely poor area of China) are having a “Sewing for Somalia” sale today. They have been working on items to sell for a number of weeks.
Furthermore we have felt very led to become vegan/vegetarian in part because of the heartfelt impact we have felt watching the Somalian people / children die. We have felt so strongly that we have an unlimited food choices and we must honor our bodies and our world by making smarter food choices. Whenever we feel “deprived” we just look to Africa.
Blessings,
Melissa E. Robinson, MAT, BCICI