FAO Survey Shows Latin America And Caribbean Have The Highest Cost Of A Healthy Diet
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has released an analysis revealing that Latin America and the Caribbean have the highest cost of a healthy diet compared to other regions.
The report, published on Wednesday, indicates that the FAO evaluated the affordability of a healthy diet, which includes diverse and nutrient-rich foods aligned with dietary guidelines, and found that billions of people worldwide are unable to afford one.
The FAO used indicators, developed in collaboration with researchers at Tufts University and the World Bank, to show that the cost of a healthy diet per person per day in 2020 was highest in Latin America and the Caribbean at $3.89, followed by Asia ($3.72), Africa ($3.46), Northern America and Europe ($3.19), and Oceania ($3.07).
Asia saw the highest surge in the cost of a healthy diet between 2019 and 2020, at 4.0%, followed by Oceania (3.6%), Latin America and the Caribbean (3.4%), Northern America and Europe (3.2%), and Africa (2.5%).
David Laborde, director of FAO’s Agrifood Economics Division, explained that ensuring an end to hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition involves more than securing enough food to survive; it also requires ensuring that people eat nutritious food.
However, one of the main obstacles to achieving this goal is the high cost of nutritious food and the low affordability of healthy diets for vast numbers of people worldwide, he added. FAO’s Director of Food and Nutrition, Lynnette Neufeld, emphasized that tracking the cost and affordability of healthy diets is an essential step towards recognizing the need to nourish, not just feed, the world.
She noted that the new methodology provides a starting point to generate evidence locally, guiding policy and programs that aim to make healthy diets affordable to all people at all times.
The FAO stated that the computing, monitoring, and reporting of global, regional, and country-level indicators on the cost and affordability of a healthy diet (CoAHD) is now institutionalised and will be regularly updated.
This provides a powerful new benchmark for tracking global progress towards making healthy diets affordable to all.
The CoAHD initiative depends on an integrated suite of data, including the retail prices of locally available foods, food-based dietary guidelines, household income distribution patterns, and purchasing power parities.
The initiative is part of a larger set of activities that will contribute to one of FAO’s four objectives within its 2022-2031 Strategic Framework – Better Nutrition.
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