Global Food Security: Ethical Challenges and Nutrition Outcomes

This essay delves into the complex ethical issues surrounding global food security, emphasizing the importance of nutrition inclusivity and addressing vulnerabilities related to both undernutrition and overconsumption. It highlights the ethical trade-offs between nutrition goals and environmental sustainability, examining how current food systems contribute to malnutrition and obesity. The analysis includes discussions on the ethical considerations of resource allocation, such as the use of cereal crops for animal feed versus human consumption, and the equitable distribution of high-value foods. The essay concludes by underscoring the need for a holistic approach to food security that considers not only calorie production but also the quality and accessibility of nutritious food, advocating for policies that promote sustainable practices and address the root causes of food insecurity to improve global health and economic conditions. Desklib provides access to this and many other student contributed assignments.

RUNNING HEAD: Global Food Security
GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY
How best to feed the world

How best to feed the world 1
Today, providing plentiful, healthy and nutritious food has become one of the major dilemmas
on today’s era. Examining the different burdens of under nutrition and overweight and
micronutrient deficiencies has also became one of the crucial problems to be sorted out.
The food security helps to focus and ensures the world to provide the nutrition that is good for
wellbeing and self-development as well. It also makes sure that the world is generating enough
calories in huge bulk in order to minimize hunger and safeguard the survival of the human being.
The costs like health, environmental, economic will be substantial if the course of action is not
changed when there comes an issue to feed the whole world. There also exists some moral and
ethical implications that will enable to develop some societal decisions regarding food security
that has the major impact on the nutrition outcomes.
The major highlights that are to be taken under the main current disclosures in relation to the
food security within the context of global citizenship and global ethics are to be mentioned
below.
 Security of food mainly focuses on producing and consuming the enough number of
calories.
 The major ethical issues in making and creating societal decisions regarding the nutrition.
 The ethical trade-offs that takes place between the nutrition goals and environmental
sustainability.
 Several approaches to food security analysis within the context of global ethics.
 A three steps to identify the main causes of food insecurity
Eating is an agricultural act that which was written by Wendell Berry in 1990. Today, nearly 800
million people across the world are suffering from the issue of food insecurity. Out of every
three people, one people is highly burdened with the problems of malnutrition which comes
under the saddled global food system. It resonates that eating is an ethical act. When we eat, it is
defined that we are far more than just being a consumers. Whenever we eat, it involves several
moral decisions in the context of many traditions, cultures that has an adverse impact on the
human nutrition in a globalized way.
Improper nutrition is defined as “a scourge in the world”. Not having the enough amount of
nutrients, health care, and good environment leads to obesity and can also cause some serious

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effect on the productivity and health as well. Because of the lack of nutrition, one may suffer to
early death. Early death of mothers, infants, impaired brain development and incurable diseases
also mat takes place in the absence of nutrition which can lead to poor health of the individual as
well the poor development in the economic condition of the country.
There are many ethical issues regarding the nutrition. Feeding the world in a proper way is
deeply rooted in ethics. There are some major ethical concerns that helps to shape the policy, and
accountability of the nutrition field. Some of them are given below.
Nutrition inclusivity is one of the issue. The issue of food should be considered as the
exceptionalism in our existing society. Food is very essential part of human function because it
helps us to exist in the world and there are often several social problems related to food that
place on the daily basis. One of the famous saying is “you are what you eat” has proven to be
very true. We choose food according to our values and beliefs and the relationship with the food
comes from the connection which is highly increasing in the globalized world. So, to understand
the value of the food with the context of developing the nutrition results, one must start with the
highly established framework of the food security. There are majorly three ethical challenges that
are being faced which helps to prohibit the inclusivity of nutrition are listed below.
The major challenge is to make sure that the all the citizens across the globe are capable of
having the nutritious food within the existing food system. The next challenge is to achieve the
nutrition outcomes because of the multi-faced complexity of the nutrition. And the third
challenge is the how food security is captured and measured form the perspective of nutrition
which provides the inaccurate picture. Nutrition has several implications that needs to be
combined in order to reach the expected goal that stands beyond the food. Only focusing on the
aspects that is related to nutrition and quantity of calories that are consumed has become of the
major concerns. There are several limitations on what are the improvements that can be done to
change the nutritional status of the populations. It further creates an interpretation and some
major ethical problems as well with the context of global food security. Food security must be
measured with several indicators and targets that will ensure the possible actions and
accountability towards the access of adequate nutritious food. Ensuring the adequate food for all
the citizens in the globe reflect the dietary quality (Burchi, 2015).

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The other ethical issue is the implications of reaching the most vulnerable. In the field of
nutrition, it is very important to know and understand who one who is most vulnerable to
malnutrition is. It can be in two forms i.e. under nutrition and overweight. It is also very vital to
develop and understand the drivers that are the major causes of vulnerability and what are its
causes and related consequences as well. The discrimination in the perceptions can generate to
undervaluation of all the contributions which have an adverse impacts on the food security and
nutrition security. The vulnerabilities for nutrition is overlapping but then they are also distinct to
the exposures to food insecurity. There are majorly two basic perspective that examines the
vulnerability with the help of two lenses i.e. an under nutrition perspective and the other one is
obesogenic environment perspective.
Under nutrition perspective includes the individual who have increased nutrient requirements at
some specific points of the lifecycle basically young children and adolescent girls, pregnant girls
and some lactating women as well. The basic nutritional needs for infants include issues in
growth, cognitive development and long lasting productivity into major adulthood (Fanzo, 2015).
Obesogenic environment perspective included the ethical consideration that are related to the
roles and responsibilities of an individuals, schools, work environment, restaurants, supermarkets
and government. Obesity is not caused by only one factor in isolation rather than it is a multi-
sectoral.
There are many ethical considerations that are to be taken on highest priority. First one is that
production is attempting to keep a match with the current demand. The increase in the demand
has a serious impact on the climate and human health. Over consuming and escalating demand
has generated some major ethical conflict for the livestock that ensures the animal welfare and
limitations of the drains in the environment. Today, the world is facing a serious famines and
hunger problem because one third of the global cereal crop production is used to feed the
animals. This has automatically created ethical dilemma like whom to feed i.e. either feed to
people that are suffering from hunger or to feed animals that helps to keep up with all the luxury
diets of the middle range.
Second one if the high value food will be easily acceptable because they are important for health
of the human, then their distribution and access to it is currently not equitable. Today
governments and many agencies are conducting an ongoing programs that will help to improve

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the chain required for the animal source foods like setting low income, goat farming and
including milk production. There are some low resource sources that must be considered in
order to fill the gaps of the nutrients that exists in all the countries. Muscle and organ meats from
livestock are the low resource sources while farmed fish, insects and plant foods are the high
resource sources.
From food security and environmental perspective, finding out the ethical issues needs great and
focused efforts in order to minimize the consumption of animal products in countries with high
level of income. The decrement in the animal source foods will help to meet the national
greenhouse gas emission targets and also decrease the years of life that take place due to heart
diseases. Food insecurity can results because of the lack of education and health capabilities that
helps to constitute human’s wellbeing.
Thus, it can be concluded that there are some major ethical issues which are highly involved and
should be sorted out in increase the economic condition of the country. The issues in the
nutrition field has become a challenge in the recent years. One must have complete knowledge of
all the values that he/she wants to uphold for a healthy and sustainable global food system. One
must be aware of all the nutrients that he/she eats on their daily life and the amount of calories
that a particular food holds.

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References
Fanzo. J, (2015), Ethical issues for human nutrition in the context of global food security and
sustainable development, viewed on 6th February, 2018. Available on:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912415300158
Burchi. F & Muro. P, (2015), from food availability to nutritional capabilities: Advancing food
security analysis, viewed on 6th February, 2018. Available on:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919215000354