What World War II taught us about how to help starving people today
The modern study of starvation was sparked by the liberation of concentration camp survivors. U.S. and British soldiers rushed to feed them — and yet they sometimes perished.
Editor's note: This story contains detailed descriptions of how starvation affects the body.
Famine has been a threat to humanity since ancient times.
But it wasn't until the end of World War II that scientists began to investigate what starvation actually does to a person's body.
Now aid advocates are calling for those lessons to be applied to today's food emergencies including the crises in Sudan, Gaza and Haiti.
Lessons from World War II
To understand why, , a social
