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TIL that malnutrition isn't an issue in North Korea (ponder.cat)
submitted 4 months ago by PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat to c/meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
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This is a weird one. Bear with me. From !dataisbeautiful@lemmygrad.ml:

So I said to myself, "that's a little bit weird. The US one going up, I can actually believe, but the North Korea one being lower is definitely wrong."

I think Our World In Data is just being shoddy, as they often do.

https://www.wfp.org/countries/democratic-peoples-republic-korea

https://www.statista.com/statistics/269924/countries-most-affected-by-hunger-in-the-world-according-to-world-hunger-index/

The thing I found funny, and why I'm posting here, comes from observing why it was that they started their graph at 2003 and exactly at 2003.

I feel like you could use this as a slide in a little seminar in "how to curate your data until it matches your conclusion, instead of the other way around."

And also, I don't think the hunger rate suddenly dropped from epic to 0 exactly in 2003, I think more likely Our World in Data is just a little bit shoddy about their data.

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[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 92 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I can't believe you would doubt the reliable reporting of the People's Divine Monarchy of North Korea

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Only what they say is true, anything else about them, including from independent journalists, is propoganda

[–] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 44 points 4 months ago

Cherry picking data has long been a problem. I recall a short piece from high school in the 80s called something like “How to Lie with Statistics.” It’s always stuck with me.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 24 points 4 months ago (2 children)

This article talks about the global famine relief effort for North Korea in 2002 that included monitoring so food actually went to people.

https://asiasociety.org/famine-north-korea

So yes, I believe it could have gone from epic to 0 in one year because most of the developed world came together and shipped food to North Korea.

And it's still shameful that it's increasing in the US.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 16 points 4 months ago

But... it's very rare that sustained international intervention into a basically hostile country to solve a decades-long issue ever even works the way it's supposed to in the first place, let alone reduces the problem it was trying to address from "crisis" to "totally nonexistent" within the space of one year.

Here are some other stats about hunger in North Korea over time:

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/PRK/north-korea/hunger-statistics

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trends-of-chronic-malnutrition-among-North-Korean-children-by-year_fig2_322157603

I am sure there is variation by how you measure things, which is why those graphs look radically different, but my point is that they don't shoop down to 0 all of a sudden in one year and then stay there.

My suspicion is that it stopped being possible to get good data in 2003, for some reason, and they just fell back on horrible data instead, which is why the sudden discontinuous change that's at odds with all the other data sources I could find.

And it’s still shameful that it’s increasing in the US.

Agreed. And that probably does correspond to actual desperate poverty.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Of course, not the NK lying.

You fell for their propaganda.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The propaganda is that they asked for food, the developed world sent it with monitors to ensure it went to people and then they said it helped?

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

No, that the problem just vanished like that, contrary to the sparse information coming out of NK, where everyone except Kim is more or less malnourished.

You seriously believe the NK data?

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[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 19 points 4 months ago

It is probably based on numbers from the North Korean government

[–] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 15 points 4 months ago

The issue here is, there's no way to confirm the data as all these dictatorship tend to manipulate their data before releasing it, and you have no way to confirm anything. Only idiots will eat it up.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

10.7 million people are undernourished
18% of children are stunted (impaired growth and development due to chronic malnutrition)
25.9 million population

That's pretty terrible. I couldn't find an apples to apples comparison, but the best numbers put food insecurity (not the same at all as malnutrition) at 5-13.5% (5% was severe food insecurity), and growth stunting was <5% (not sure on the severity).

Having ~40% of your population be malnourished is horrendous. This is absolutely cherry-picked data at best.

[–] macaroni1556 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This chart is specifically the death rate. The other charts you provided are "affected by" aggregate statistics or "undernourished" if I understand correctly.

It seems possible that NK is improving on people dying directly from it or deaths are being categorized differently (if everyone is malnourished, another more immediate cause of death may be recoreded).

So I'm not sure this is entirely wrong.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 9 points 4 months ago

All three charts measure different things, yes. I suspect that "Our World in Data" is converting some more complex metrics into "estimated deaths per 100,000" to have an apples to apples comparison, and doing it badly in this case, since their numbers are so different from other sources. It could be also that they just can't get good numerical data out of North Korea. Some sources don't even quote numbers because there would be too much guesswork involved.

But I definitely wouldn't count that, or "deaths are being categorized differently by the government" as a sign that this isn't wrong. The literal death rate from malnutrition in North Korea is far from negligible like it is in China, Vietnam, or the US (even with it going up in the US). You don't have 20% of your children with stunted growth without some of them being too weak to make it and dying of some condition due to malnutrition. And that absolutely haunting video of the starving North Korean woman gathering grass, who died shortly after the interview, is from 2010.

[–] therealjcdenton@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Lemmygrad is hilarious, you fell for propaganda

[–] ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

You fell for clickbait. If you read it, you notice that they basically debunk the title

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 10 points 4 months ago

At what point did I fall for it?

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 4 months ago

but ya see, it took 48 years of feeding the starving into the foodschmunkgeneratorium2000™ to march north korean statistics out of the state of starvation with the will and pure physical determination of the people! just not the living/s

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Why has it gone up so much in the US?

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 14 points 4 months ago

They're abusing a chart which is supposed to be configured more like this:

I think the increase in the US is probably real, maybe increasing desperation as the combination of the financial crash, opioid epidemic, and increasing rents drove people increasingly into the margins. But the size of the problem in the US is still basically 0 as in other functioning countries. I don't know for sure, but I think if accurate numbers for North Korea were on that chart, they'd be way up above South Sudan and Madagascar. At least there are aid agencies trying to do something in Africa. In North Korea, people are just dying, and that's it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65881803

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Yeah but I'm worried about why it went up in the US? I don't care about authoritarian propaganda.

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