This is an article written by a teenager for the magazine, Teen Ink to help raise awareness about starvation and obesity. This is a great article for kids to read with tons of facts and simpler language so that it doesn't seem like they're reading out of an encyclopedia. After reading this article, kids can be inspired and want to want to help raise awareness too!

Ending Starvation
By Colleen B., Hull, MA

Starvation can be found everywhere and is a seemingly never-ending battle that could be solved with help from our country. Americans, for the most part, are able to get what we want when we want it, whether it is spending ridiculous amounts of money on clothing or buying candy bars we really don’t need. We are the kings of waste. If we took a look at any third-world country, we would realize how little effort it would take for us to save lives.

Although it exists all over the world, starvation is more prevalent in areas like Africa where 30 million people are at risk of starvation or death from malnutrition. This is one of the facts of which World Message Day (worldmessageday.com) is trying to remind everyone. They are also making people aware of the astonishing rate at which people die from starvation: every 3.6 seconds someone will die, a quarter of whom are children under the age of five. This could change if Americans gave up a fraction of what we take for granted. Coincidentally, two of the items Americans abuse most - cigarettes and food - are the leading causes of preventable death in our society. The money we spend slowly killing ourselves with these things could be used to save lives. More...