They have become a shell of their former selves. There is little spark or energy. They have little chance to learn or advance in school. Even in the United States, children with poor infant and toddler nutrition develop a substantially lower IQ than other children. Famine is an inevitable result of poor weather and bad soil.
Hunger is a weapon.
In Bur Acaba in Somalia, during the height of the famine, we took a camera crew into a young mother's home. She had lost two small children to starvation and had two others in very rough shape. To our amazement, directly across the way from her little encampment, was an enormous pile of grain. As I took this bag of grain back, though, I found that there was an AK-47 barrel right here in the middle of my chest. Hunger and famine exist in faraway lands and do not concern us.