Download or read book Cost and affordability of healthy diets across and within countries written by Herforth, A., Bai, Y., Venkat, A., Mahrt, K., Ebel, A. & Masters, W.A. and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2020-12-12 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Price and affordability are key barriers to accessing sufficient, safe, nutritious food to meet dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. In this study, the least-cost items available in local markets are identified to estimate the cost of three diet types: energy sufficient, nutrient adequate, and healthy (meeting food-based dietary guidelines). For price and availability the World Bank’s International Comparison Program (ICP) dataset is used, which provides food prices in local currency units (LCU) for 680 foods and non-alcoholic beverages in 170 countries in 2017. In addition, country case studies are developed with national food price datasets in United Republic of Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, Ghana and Myanmar. The findings reveal that healthy diets by any definition are far more expensive than the entire international poverty line of USD 1.90, let alone the upper bound portion of the poverty line that can credibly be reserved for food of USD 1.20. The cost of healthy diets exceeds food expenditures in most countries in the Global South. The findings suggest that nutrition education and behaviour change alone will not substantially improve dietary consumption where nutrient adequate and healthy diets, even in their cheapest form, are unaffordable for the majority of the poor. To make healthy diets cheaper, agricultural policies, research, and development need to shift toward a diversity of nutritious foods.
Download or read book Estimating the cost and affordability of healthy diets How much do methods matter written by Headey, Derek D. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2023-04-24 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cost and affordability of healthy diet (CoAHD) metrics developed in a handful of academic studies have quickly become mainstream food security indicators among major development institutions. The World Bank and FAO now report CoAHD statistics in their widely used databanks, and the UN’s State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) reports CoAHD metrics on an annual basis, with the headline conclusion being that over 3 billion people worldwide cannot afford a healthy diet. While quantifying affordability constraints is indeed a vital addition to the suite of global food security indicators, there is a dearth of scientific analysis on the accuracy and sensitivity of CoAHD methods. Published global CoAHD estimates rely on three implicit assumptions: that demographic differences across countries have little effect on average diet costs; that non-food expenditure requirements have little systematic variation across countries; and that international food price data is representative in a population sense and product coverage sense. Testing these assumptions on the cost of the EAT-Lancet reference diet, we find sizable sensitivity of baseline methods to adjusting diet affordability estimates for systematic cross-country differences in demographic profiles and non-food expenditure requirements, smaller effects of adjusting for inadequate food product coverage in international price data, and inconclusive evidence on issues of urban bias in price surveys. Our proposed methodological improvements significantly change country, regional and global estimates of healthy diet affordability, though not the headline conclusion that several billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Even so, the accuracy, rigor, and reliability of CoAHD statistics warrant closer investigation given their widespread adoption and utilization.
Download or read book Sustainable healthy diets written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Considering the detrimental environmental impact of current food systems, and the concerns raised about their sustainability, there is an urgent need to promote diets that are healthy and have low environmental impacts. These diets also need to be socio-culturally acceptable and economically accessible for all. Acknowledging the existence of diverging views on the concepts of sustainable diets and healthy diets, countries have requested guidance from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on what constitutes sustainable healthy diets. These guiding principles take a holistic approach to diets; they consider international nutrition recommendations; the environmental cost of food production and consumption; and the adaptability to local social, cultural and economic contexts. This publication aims to support the efforts of countries as they work to transform food systems to deliver on sustainable healthy diets, contributing to the achievement of the SDGs at country level, especially Goals 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger), 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), 4 (Quality Education), 5 (Gender Equality) and 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and 13 (Climate Action).
Download or read book Methods and options to monitor the cost and affordability of a healthy diet globally written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2022-08-02 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FAO is focusing its attention on the pursuit of healthy diets and transformations of agrifood systems to ensure healthy diets are affordable for all. Measuring and systematically monitoring the cost and affordability of healthy diets and making progress towards ensuring the affordability of healthy diets is of upmost importance and is urgently needed. To this end, FAO is committed to institutionalize the computation of the least-cost healthy diet, and the corresponding affordability indicator, and to publish updated estimates in the annual The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, as well as provide the full data series on FAOSTAT. This background paper to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 report presents the new methodological refinements applied in the estimation of the average cost of a healthy diet. This is an important methodological update as it results in a more robust indicator that provides greater transparency and supports long-term systematic monitoring utilizing annually updated price data. The paper then explores potential mechanisms and data sources for monitoring globally the cost of a healthy diet.
Download or read book The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions. The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.
Download or read book Affordability of nutritious diets in rural India written by Raghunathan, Kalyani and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-03-11 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Malnutrition is endemic in India. In 2015-16 some 38% of preschool children were stunted and 21% were wasted, while more than half of Indian mothers and children were anemic. There are many posited explanations for the high rates of malnutrition in India, but surprisingly few discuss the role of Indian diets, particularly the affordability of nutritious diets given low wages and the significant structural problems facing India’s agricultural sector. This study was undertaken to address knowledge gaps around the affordability of nutritious diets in rural India. To do so we used nationally representative rural price and wage data to estimate the least cost means of satisfying India-specific dietary recommendations, referred to as the Cost of a Recommended Diet (CoRD), and assess the affordability of this diet relative to male and female wages for unskilled laborers. Although we find that dietary costs increased substantially over 2001-2011 for both men and women, rural wage rates increased more rapidly, implying that nutritious diets became substantially more affordable over time. However, in absolute terms nutritious diets in 2011 were still expensive relative to unskilled wages, constituting approximately 50-60% of male and about 70-80% of female daily wages, and were often even higher relative to minimum wages earned from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Since many poor households have significant numbers of dependents and substantial non-food expenditure requirements, it follows that nutritious diets are often highly unaffordable for the rural poor; we estimate that 45-64% of the rural poor cannot afford a nutritious diet that meets India’s national food-based dietary guidelines. Our results point to the need to more closely monitor food prices through a nutritional lens, and to shift India’s existing food policies away from their heavy bias towards cereals. Achieving nutritional security in India requires a much more holistic focus on improving the affordability of the full range of nutritious food groups and ensuring that economic growth results in sustained income growth for the poor.
Download or read book Costing healthy diets and measuring deprivation New indicators and modeling approaches written by Pauw, Karl and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-12-22 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the greatest global challenges today is ensuring widespread availability and equitable access to affordable, nutritious foods produced in an environmentally sustainable manner. A rich literature exists around the definition of a healthy diet and the drivers of dietary change. We contribute to this literature by proposing a new quantifiable diet deprivation measure estimated from standard household consumption and expenditure surveys. The Reference Diet Deprivation (ReDD) index measures the incidence, breadth, and depth of diet deprivation across multiple, essential food groups in a single indicator. Although useful as a standalone measure, we show how ReDD can be integrated into an economywide model to examine changes in household diet quality under different simulation scenarios. Using Nigeria as case study, hypothetical agricultural productivity growth scenarios reveal that dairy, pulses, fruit, and red meat value chains have the greatest potential to reduce overall diet deprivation in Nigeria per unit of GDP growth generated, while productivity growth in more widely consumed crops such as cereals and root crops do little to improve diet quality. These findings have implications for the prioritization of agricultural development initiatives aimed at improving the quality of diets. More generally, the integration of a diet quality indicator in an economywide model allows for a deeper understanding of the drivers of dietary change.
Download or read book Animal Sourced Foods and Child Stunting written by Derek Headey and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stunting affects 160 million pre-school children globally with adverse life-long consequences. While work within nutritional science suggests that stunting in early childhood is associated with low intakes of animal-sourced foods (ASFs), this topic has received little attention from economists. We attempt to redress this omission through an analysis of 130,432 children aged 6-23)months from 49 countries. We document distinctive patterns of ASF consumption among children in different regions. We find evidence of strong associations between stunting and a generic ASF consumption indicator, as well as dairy, meat/fish, and egg consumption indicators, and evidence that consuming multiple ASFs is more advantageous than any single ASF. We explore why ASF consumption is low but also so variable across countries. Non-tradable ASFs (fresh milk, eggs) are a very expensive source of calories in low-income countries and caloric prices of these foods are strongly associated with children's consumption patterns. Other demand-side factors are also important, but the strong influence of prices implies an important role for agricultural policies--in production, marketing and trade--to improve the accessibility and affordability of ASFs in poorer countries.
Download or read book Measuring the Cost and Affordability of Healthier and Less Healthy Foods Meals and Diets written by Sally Mackay and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aim Cost is a major determinant of food purchases. The central question for this PhD is whether healthy eating costs more than less healthy eating. Monitoring the cost of foods, meals and diets is important to provide evidence to inform policies. Each approach needs standardised methodologies to ensure fair comparisons over time, and between countries. Method Standardised methods were developed and piloted to measure the relative costs of healthier and less healthy foods, meals and diets using commonly consumed foods and locally collected prices. The use of different data sources and methodological approaches was explored to assess the impact on cost. Results The foods approach measured the price of foods over time using the WHO Europe nutrient profile model and the NOVA classification (degree of processing), and compared the cost of pairs of healthier and less healthy foods. The meals approach compared the cost of popular takeaway meals with healthier home-cooked meals, incorporating the cost of preparation or waiting time. The diet approach compared the cost of a healthy and a current diet. Healthier and less healthy foods, and minimally processed, processed and ultra-processed foods all increased in price at a similar rate over ten years. The healthier items of a pair tended to cost the same as, or more than, the less healthy counterpart. Healthier home-made and home-assembled meals were less expensive than their takeaway counterparts. When time was included, home-assembled meals were the cheapest option and half the home-made meals were at least as expensive as the takeaway meals. The healthy and current diets were similar in price when only the current diet contained alcohol and takeaways, and the energy requirement of the diets was to maintain the recommended BMI for an active person (healthy diet) or maintain the current BMI at current activity levels. Altering aspects of diet, including or excluding takeaways, and generic labels, and altering the energy requirements had considerable impacts on cost. Conclusion This thesis developed novel methods to provide a simple, standardised approach to monitor the price of healthier and less healthy foods, meals and diets enabling comparisons over time, and between countries.
Download or read book Global Food Systems Diets and Nutrition written by Jessica Fanzo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-06-05 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ensuring optimal diets and nutrition for the global population is a grand challenge fraught with many contentious issues. To achieve food security for all and protect health, we need functional, equitable, and sustainable food systems. Food systems are highly complex networks of individuals and institutions that depend on governance and policy leadership. This book explains how interconnected food systems and policies affect diets and nutrition in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. In tandem with food policy, food systems determine the availability, affordability, and nutritional quality of the food supply, which influences the diets that people are willing and able to consume. Readers will become familiar with both domestic and international food policy processes and actors, and they will be able to critically analyze and debate how policy and science affect diet and nutrition outcomes.
Download or read book Repurposing food and agricultural policies to deliver affordable healthy diets sustainably and inclusively what is at stake written by Glauber, J., Laborde, D. and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2023-02-20 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The analysis presented in this report examines the impacts of repurposing food and agricultural fiscal support and border support on the cost and affordability of healthy diets and several other key socioeconomic, nutritional and climate indicators. The impacts are estimated at the global level, as well as for various income groups and geographic regions. Scenarios include repurposing fiscal support to producer support targeted to high-priority foods (those where current levels of consumption are below that of recommended levels) and to consumer subsidies targeting high-priority foods.
Download or read book Trade Food Diet and Health written by Corinna Hawkes and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-10-29 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global shift towards overweight and obese populations has ledto a significant rise in diet-related chronic illness. This bookexamines the role global food trade has played in that shift,looking carefully at how the trade of food across national borders,international and regional trade agreements, the process of tradeand investment liberalization, and the growth of transnational foodcorporations affects what people eat and, by implication, theirhealth. An international team of editors has brought together aprestigious group of contributors who present a critical analysisof the linkages between trade, food and diet in different domains.Between them, the multidisciplinary group present a balancedperspective on the opportunities and risks trade poses for dietarytrends and offer a practical analysis of the policy optionsavailable to address this growing global concern. An international multidisciplinary team of authors Detailed look at the issues followed by practical policyanalysis A comprehensive review of an important global issue Academics, researchers and practitioners in the field of publichealth, especially those concerned with nutrition, obesity andchronic disease, will find this book an enlightening andfascinating read. Social scientists, policy makers, trade analystsand food industry professionals will equally gain much from thisinnovative approach to the subject.
Download or read book The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2018-09-14 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New evidence this year corroborates the rise in world hunger observed in this report last year, sending a warning that more action is needed if we aspire to end world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. Updated estimates show the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to prevailing levels from almost a decade ago. Although progress continues to be made in reducing child stunting, over 22 percent of children under five years of age are still affected. Other forms of malnutrition are also growing: adult obesity continues to increase in countries irrespective of their income levels, and many countries are coping with multiple forms of malnutrition at the same time – overweight and obesity, as well as anaemia in women, and child stunting and wasting.
Download or read book Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition Latin America and the Caribbean 2022 written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2023-01-18 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Regional Overview present the regional food security and nutrition situation, including trends of undernourishment, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition, together with other indicators that could help the understanding of the causes of hunger and malnutrition. This edition offers a regional overview of the socioeconomic state of the region; national and regional data and trends regarding the costs and affordability of healthy diets; the possible drivers behind the high cost of healthy diets and their unaffordability; and introduces policies and investments around the region that aim to reduce the cost of nutritious foods and improve the affordability of healthy diets.
Download or read book The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2023-07-12 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report provides an update on global progress towards the targets of ending hunger (SDG Target 2.1) and all forms of malnutrition (SDG Target 2.2) and estimates on the number of people who are unable to afford a healthy diet. Since its 2017 edition, this report has repeatedly highlighted that the intensification and interaction of conflict, climate extremes and economic slowdowns and downturns, combined with highly unaffordable nutritious foods and growing inequality, are pushing us off track to meet the SDG 2 targets. However, other important megatrends must also be factored into the analysis to fully understand the challenges and opportunities for meeting the SDG 2 targets. One such megatrend, and the focus of this year’s report, is urbanization. New evidence shows that food purchases in some countries are no longer high only among urban households but also among rural households. Consumption of highly processed foods is also increasing in peri-urban and rural areas of some countries. These changes are affecting people’s food security and nutrition in ways that differ depending on where they live across the rural–urban continuum. This timely and relevant theme is aligned with the United Nations General Assembly-endorsed New Urban Agenda, and the report provides recommendations on the policies, investments and actions needed to address the challenges of agrifood systems transformation under urbanization and to enable opportunities for ensuring access to affordable healthy diets for everyone.
Download or read book Variations in the subnational cost and affordability of a healthy diet for selected countries in Africa written by Holleman, C. and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2023-12-15 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This background paper to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 presents an innovative analysis of within-country variability of the cost and affordability of a healthy diet (CoAHD). The study uses an innovative spatial perspective by analysing the changes along the urban–rural catchment areas (URCA) and using the Living Standards Measurement Studies (LSMS) of 11 African countries. The results show that the cost of a healthy diet in peri-urban areas is lower than it is in urban areas, but the percentage of the population unable to afford a healthy diet is always higher in the surroundings of urban centres. The gap is particularly large between small cities and their surrounding areas, and the share of population unable to secure a healthy diet is disproportionally high in the more remote rural areas. The paper also investigates three methodological issues that were encountered during the analysis to provide evidence on the validity of the FAO Healthy Diet Basket (HDB) methodology for the estimation of subnational cost and affordability of a healthy diet.
