It is those who eat who invented hunger: from invisibility to enunciation – a much needed discussion in times of pandemic

It is those who eat who invented hunger

Abstract

This text discusses the importance of the enunciation of hunger during the health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. To this end, we present a brief overview of the use of the terms hunger and food and nutrition (in)security, drawing on the pioneering experience of the Brazilian doctor Josué de Castro and the assumption that naming or not the absence of regular food in sufficient quantities to sustain life as hunger is a political and ethical act that has direct implications on the construction of public programs and policies to guarantee the human right to adequate food and food and nutritional security. We discuss the concomitance of structural and systemic hunger, not only as a concept, but also as an experience, and as one of the pathways to resistance against technical concepts, conformist theories and colonialist production.

Keywords: Hunger; Diet; Society; Food and Nutrition Security; Pandemic

Access in: https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1414-32832021000100215&lng=pt&nrm=iso&tlng=pt