A lifetime of deprivation and slow starvation might not make the population as restive as we’d like to think. There are some studies that suggest a low-calorie diet is an excellent instrument of control, if used properly. Keep a man just this side of death by starvation, and he’s quite compliant. Make him think, since he’s a child, that the world is full of people who wish him ill, but that those who see he gets what little food he does have will protect him, and you’ve got yourself a fanatical fighter.