essay about healthy diet affordable for all

Three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet

A healthy, nutritious diet is much more expensive than a calorie sufficient one. as a result, three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet..

A healthy diet is about much more than calories: we need a wide range of nutrient-dense foods to get all of the vitamins and minerals that are essential for good health. In this post I look at the costs of diets around the world. Healthy diets are expensive; more than four times the cost of a basic, calorie-sufficient one. This is true in every country in the world. As a result, three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet, even if they spend most of their income on food.

Being able to eat a healthy, nutritious diet is one of our most basic human needs. Yet billions of people go without; they suffer from ‘ hidden hunger ’, micronutrient deficiencies such as too little iron, calcium, vitamin-A or iodine.

There are many reasons why someone might not eat a nutritious diet. 1 Often it’s because people cannot afford to.

To understand the affordability of food across the world a team of researchers looked at the lowest-cost options to meet basic nutritional requirements. 2 As part of this study for the FAO’s The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, Anna Herforth and colleagues asked the question: “what is the cheapest way to meet dietary requirements in each country?”.

They answered this question using data on prices for locally-available food items from the International Comparison Program (ICP) matched to other data on food composition and dietary requirements.

You find their full set of results in our Food Prices Data Explorer .

An energy sufficient diet: hundreds of millions cannot afford one

Let’s start with the most basic requirement: getting enough calories. These calories could come in any form, but the cheapest option in most countries is starchy foods and cereals. Living on this ‘energy sufficient’ diet would mean eating only maize flour or rice for every meal, a diet that is severely lacking all other important nutrients. When you look at people’s diets you see that in poor countries, people get most of their calories from starchy foods.

In each country, prices were measured at retail marketplaces specific to the local context – this could be anything from small open stalls to large supermarkets, whatever is most representative for the country. 3 The total costs of diets are given in international-$. 4

In the following text I always refer to international-$, but only use the $-sign to keep the text readable.

A person can eat an energy sufficient diet on less than $1 a day. The global average price for this diet across all countries in the study was $ 0.83 per day.

What does this mean for the affordability of a calorie sufficient diet? The researchers define ‘affordability’ by whether someone can afford it if they spend 52% of their income on food. 5 The concept of ‘affordability’ is a somewhat subjective one, and will depend on an individual’s context. People at higher incomes spend a much smaller share on food. The relationship between our income and what we spend on food follows a fairly consistent pattern, known as Engel’s Law . Engel’s Law describes the empirical regularity that as incomes increase the share that we spend on food decreases (even if the total amount that we spend on food increases). We see this relationship holds true when we compare food expenditures across the world.

This means the poorest households spend a very high share of their income on food. The researchers chose this ‘52% threshold’ because this is the share that people at the lowest incomes do typically spend on food.

By comparing the cost of diets with income distributions across the world, researchers estimated that 381 million people could not afford the most basic energy sufficient diet in 2017. 6 These are the very worst-off in terms of nutrition.

An important question is how subsistence farmers fit in. They are included in these numbers: the income measure used to calculate the affordability of diets does take the value of subsistence farming (i.e. home production) into account. When the FAO report states that these smallholder farmers cannot afford a calorie-sufficient diet, they’re really saying that they cannot produce one. This state – where farmers struggled to produce enough staple crops to feed their families – was the default position in the past. Most of the world population was undernourished. As a recent study on the history of global poverty estimates, just two centuries ago around three-quarters of the world “could not afford a tiny space to live, food that would not induce malnutrition, and some minimum heating capacity.” 7

Today we might think of this calorie-sufficient threshold as the nutritional equivalent to the $1.90 international poverty line . 8 It is the absolute bare minimum. It is a very low threshold that allows us to identify those living in the most dire of circumstances.

A healthy diet: three billion people cannot afford one

What people really need is a diverse and nutritious diet. Getting enough calories is important, but it is not sufficient to live a healthy and productive life. Eating only cereals and starchy foods will leave you deficient in protein, essential fats and the wide range of micronutrients that our bodies need to function optimally.

Most countries develop ‘food-based dietary guidelines’ which provide recommendations on what a ‘healthy diet’ would look like. This includes guidelines on what balance of foods across the many groups – cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, meat and dairy – is considered best for long-term health.

The researchers also looked at the lowest-cost options to meet these national food-based dietary guidelines. Of course, there is no universal ‘healthy diet’, particularly when we consider the strong cultural differences in what people eat. So, the researchers selected dietary guidelines which were regionally representative: this means we’re not expecting that people in India or Japan will adopt the national dietary guidelines of the United States, or vice versa.

Unsurprisingly, a diverse, healthy diet is much more expensive than a calorie-sufficient one. The researchers found that the average cost across the world was $3.54 per day. That’s more than four times higher. 9

When we put these prices in the context of affordability – again defining this as spending 52% of our income on food – we find that three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. In many of the world’s poorest countries – particularly across Sub-Saharan Africa – it’s unaffordable (or not producible) for most of the population. This is shown in the map which gives these figures as a percentage of the total population. In many countries, a healthy diet is out-of-reach for more than 90%.

How do incomes around the world compare with the price of a healthy diet?

A useful way to bring context to food prices is to compare the cost of a healthy diet with the median income of countries across the world.

Both of these distributions are shown in the chart. First I’ve plotted the income distribution of the world in blue – the height of each box corresponds to the median income of each country in 2017. The poorest countries you find on the left, the richest on the right. The width of each bar represents the size of the population in that country.

These are measured in international dollars, which correct for cross-country price differences.

On top of this income distribution I’ve added the cost of a healthy diet for each country – shown in pink.

In the poorest countries, the cost of a healthy diet is higher than the median income. Even if the average person in these countries spent all of their money on food, a healthy diet would be unaffordable.

In some countries – India is the largest among them – dietary costs would be roughly equal to the median income. There people would need to spend all of their income on food to afford a healthy diet.

Towards the right we find the world’s richest countries. There, median incomes are much higher than dietary costs. In these countries the median income earner can afford a healthy diet with a relatively small fraction of their income. The average person in France could spend just 6% of their income on food. In Denmark, just 5%.

What this comparison shows is how far most of the world is from being able to afford a healthy diet. We cannot spend all, or even most, of our income on food. We would have very little to spend on other essentials such as energy, housing, clothing, education and healthcare.

On this chart I’ve also drawn lines that show us what level of income you would need if you were to spend one-third; 20% or 10% of your income on food. This is equivalent to the share that people in high-income (10% to 20%) and middle-income (one-third) countries spend. Median incomes would need to be anywhere in the range of $11 to $37 per person per day.

There’s no definitive answer as to which of these income levels is ‘right’. But considering it in this way gives us some indication of what minimum thresholds might seem reasonable to aim for given the cost of healthy, nutritious diets across the world.

The world has come a long way in making a calorie sufficient diet more attainable. Undernourishment is no longer the default state like it was in the past (although it is still a sad reality for many of the world’s poorest). The world managed to achieve this through technological advances in agriculture: we can now grow much more food. This happened alongside a significant rise in incomes across the world.

This ratio between food prices and incomes – called ‘real incomes’ is key. If we’re to make a healthy diet affordable for everyone, we need to see large increases in real incomes. As we explain in our recent article , an increase in real incomes means economic growth.

We still have some way to go to ensure everyone can afford a calorie-sufficient diet. What this latest research shows is that we have much further to go to ensure that a healthy diet is affordable in all countries across the world.

This article was first published on 12th July 2021. It was updated on 11th July 2022 with updated figures from the latest food prices release from the World Bank.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank William Masters, Max Roser, Joe Hasell and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina for feedback and suggestions on this work.

Some reasons – in addition to those discussed in this text – include a lack of knowledge: we might simply not know what a healthy diet looks like. Or there is unequal distribution of foods within households.

Herforth, A., Bai, Y., Venkat, A., Mahrt, K., Ebel, A. & Masters, W.A. 2020. Cost and affordability of healthy diets across and within countries. Background paper for The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 . FAO Agricultural Development Economics Technical Study No. 9. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb2431en.

To assess prices and the availability of food, the authors used the World Bank’s International Comparison Program dataset which provides food prices in local currency units (LCU) for 680 foods and non-alcoholic beverages in 170 countries.

Throughout this article the statisticians who produce these figures are careful to make these numbers as comparable as possible.

First, many poorer people rely on subsistence farming and do not have a monetary income. To take this into account and make a fair comparison of their living standards, the statisticians that produce these figures estimate the monetary value of their home production and add it to their income/expenditure.

Second, price changes over time (inflation) and price differences across countries are both taken into account: all measures are adjusted for differences in purchasing power. To this end incomes and expenditures are expressed in so-called international dollars. This is a hypothetical currency that results from the price adjustments across time and place. An international dollar is defined as having the same purchasing power as one US-$ in the US. This means no matter where in the world a person is living on int.-$30, they can buy the goods and services that cost $30 in the US. None of these adjustments are ever going to be perfect, but in a world where price differences are large it is important to attempt to account for these differences as well as possible, and this is what these adjustments do.

In the previous release of this dataset, researchers set this 'affordability' threshold at 63% of someone's income.

This figure is lower than the 663 million people defined as undernourished by the UN FAO. Where does this difference come from? This study focuses on what people could afford, not what they actually choose to spend their money on. Spending 52% of your income on food leaves very little for other important goods such as housing, energy, education, clothing and health. Not everyone who could spend this money on achieving an energy sufficient diet will do so. They might choose to spend some of their income elsewhere.

Michail Moatsos (2021) – Global extreme poverty: Present and past since 1820. Published in OECD (2021), How Was Life? Volume II: New Perspectives on Well-being and Global Inequality since 1820, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/3d96efc5-en.

Since publishing this article, the international poverty line has been updated to $2.15 per day, now measured in 2017 international-$ as opposed to the 2011 international-$ used previously. All int.-$ values given in this article likewise refer to 2011 prices.

You can read more in our article   From $1.90 to $2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line .

While there are some country-by-country differences in the cost of these diets (some of which is likely to be attributed to the large uncertainty around these estimates), healthy diets are expensive everywhere compared to the incomes of billions of people across the world. No country is an exception.

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Strategies for Eating Well on a Budget

An all-too-common mantra says, “It’s too expensive to eat healthy.” It’s true that when comparing specific foods like organic fruits with conventional fruits, the former tends to be a few dollars more per pound. And when a shopping cart filled with fresh produce, poultry, and fish is compared with one loaded with boxes of macaroni and cheese, ground hamburger meat, and cookies, the latter will likely ring lower at the cash register.

Certainly, policy improvements and other actions are needed to create a food environment where the healthy choice is the easy and accessible choice. In the meantime, know that creating nutritious meals can be more affordable than one might think. In fact, one meta-analysis looking at the price difference between healthful and less healthful dietary patterns found that diets with healthier foods only cost a bit more—about $1.48 per day. [1]

A note on food affordability and resources that can help

From the supermarket to the kitchen, here are some strategies to get the biggest nutrition bang for your buck.

Tips for Supermarket Savings

• Plan out a few meals you want to prepare the next week and create your shopping list based on these ingredients.
• Consider meatless meals . Plant-based proteins are highly nutritious and generally more affordable than meats and fish. If you still crave meat, incorporate smaller amounts as a base for flavor or as a condiment, while focusing on plant proteins like beans or tofu so that you can save on cost, increase volume of the meal, and boost nutrition and heartiness.
• Purchase foods and snacks that are satiating and filling . How easy is it to eat a half a package of chips in one sitting? In contrast, how many handfuls of nuts or apples can you eat at one time? Even though a 3-pound bag of apples may cost $4.00 versus $2.50 for a large bag of chips, consider which will satisfy your hunger longer. One study found that unsatiating foods leave people wanting to eat more often, which may translate into greater food costs. [2]
• Don’t shop on an empty stomach . Munch on a piece of fruit or some nuts before entering the store.
• Allow for flexibility in your shopping list if items like fresh produce or poultry and fish are on sale. If they are foods you enjoy, you might purchase extra quantities and freeze them for later use. Fresh meats, fish, and some produce ( bananas , berries, avocados , broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts , corn) freeze well.
• Find the common unit of measurement when comparing two products. For example, a bag of brown rice may be in pounds.
• Divide the price of the rice by the total pounds, which is the price per unit. Example: Rice A costs $1.59 for a 1-pound bag ($1.59 per pound), whereas Rice B costs $3.99 for a 5-pound bag (about $0.80 per pound). Rice B is cheaper.
• Buy generic or store-brand : you will notice when comparing the ingredients list that similar if not identical ingredients are used. The generic brand is generally cheaper because less money is spent on advertising and creating fancy food labels.
• Scan the discounted produce cart that usually sits in a corner; this is filled with produce starting to age but which are still tasty if you can eat them the same day or the next day.
• Don’t buy more highly perishable items than you can use in one week (unless you plan to freeze them), or else you run the risk of food spoilage and waste. Learn how to store produce correctly for a longer shelf life, and be aware of highly perishable foods such as ready-to-eat bagged salad greens, mushrooms, berries, avocados, and bananas.

• Another flavor-builder that can handle the freezer is ginger: store in an airtight bag and when ready to use, peel and grate as much as you like (no need to thaw), returning the remainder to the freezer.
• If you enjoy fresh scallions (green onions), you can easily regrow them on a sunny windowsill. Place the white root ends in a glass of water (changing out the water about once per week). Once the green ends have regrown, snip what you need and let the rest keep growing.
• Use what you have before buying more . Commit to taking inventory of all the food in your kitchen twice a month. Bring forward the buried items and plan meals based on these ingredients.
• Eat attentively . Practicing mindfulness during meals (known as mindful eating ) can increase enjoyment of the food. You may even be satisfied with smaller portions. Conversely, eating while distracted can lead to feeling hungry again sooner and a higher intake of food later on. [3,4]

Nutritious and Inexpensive Staples

Here are some foods that are economical year-round and offer a wide range of nutrients including protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals:

• Beans , peas, lentils (dried, frozen, canned)
• Canned fish (tuna, salmon, sardines)
• Ground turkey 90% lean
• Chicken thighs with skin (these are cheaper than skinless chicken thighs but the skin can be removed before cooking)
• Peanut butter
• Lowfat cottage cheese
• Leafy greens ( kale , collards)
• Whole heads lettuce or cabbage
• Fresh carrots
• Fresh apples
• Fresh bananas
• Any fresh produce on sale
• Frozen unsweetened fruit
• Frozen or canned vegetables without added salt
• Generic store-brand high-fiber cereals (plain shredded wheat, bran)
• Whole rolled oats
• Whole grains, dried ( brown rice , millet, barley, bulgur)
• Whole grain pasta
• Dried popcorn kernels to cook in an air-popper
• String cheese
• Sodium-free herbs (cumin, curry, thyme, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder) and herb blends
• Canned reduced-sodium tomato paste
• Olive oil and other liquid vegetable oils

Getting Into the Kitchen  

With these staples in your culinary arsenal, you’re ready to get started on any number of meals. Here are a few ideas:

Veggie burgers

Homemade chicken nuggets.

*May add to the crushed cornflakes 1-2 teaspoons of any herbs and spices; examples are thyme, parsley, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper.

Three-bean chili

Looking for more recipes? Explore our full bank of recipes for cooking at home, or check out these delicious chef-designed dishes from The Culinary Institute of America.* While local costs may vary, all recipes were budgeted to cost $2 or less per serving:

• Salad Rolls with Fried Tofu, Green Beans, and Chili-Lime Dipping Sauce
• Cardamom Cauliflower
• Cabbage Avocado Salad
• Siena’s Favorite Broccoli
• Spicy Pickled Vegetables
• Fava with Tomato-Braised Capers
• Simple Zesty Green Beans
• Spinach, Onion, and Red Pepper Frittata
• Avocado Mango Salsa
• Braised Carrots with Ginger
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Crispy Kale
• Crunchy Corn and Bean Salad
• Pasta with Roasted Sweet Potato, Broccoli, Beans
• Carrot Kibbeh
• Roasted Okra and Sweet Potatoes
• Black-Eyed Peas and Collard Greens Caviar
• Chunky Eggplant Salad
• Curried Lentil Soup
• Shawarma-Style Chicken “Nachos” with Cucumber, Tomato, and Tahini
• Stir-Fried Green Beans with Coconut
• Butternut Squash Gozleme
• Green Tomatillo Salsa
• Baba Ganoush

*Recipes courtesy of The Culinary Institute of America, developed for  Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives (HKHL), a collaboration between the Harvard Chan School’s Department of Nutrition and The Culinary Institute of America. Most of these recipes align with HKHL Recipe Nutrition Goals (2020) .

• Rao M, Afshin A, Singh G, Mozaffarian D. Do healthier foods and diet patterns cost more than less healthy options? A systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ open. 2013 Dec 1;3(12):e004277.
• Daniel C. Is healthy eating too expensive?: How low-income parents evaluate the cost of food. Social Science & Medicine . 2020 Mar 1;248:112823.
• Robinson E, Aveyard P, Daley A, Jolly K, Lewis A, Lycett D, Higgs S. Eating attentively: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effect of food intake memory and awareness on eating. The American journal of clinical nutrition . 2013 Apr 1;97(4):728-42.
• Robinson E, Kersbergen I, Higgs S. Eating ‘attentively’reduces later energy consumption in overweight and obese females. British Journal of Nutrition . 2014 Aug;112(4):657-61.

Last reviewed December 2022

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Healthy Diet Essay

Consuming a healthy diet throughout a person’s life helps prevent malnutrition in all its forms, as well as a range of diet-related non-communicable diseases and conditions. But the increased consumption of processed food, rapid urbanisation and changing lifestyles have led to a shift in dietary patterns. People now consume fast food and do not eat enough fibre-rich fruits, vegetables and whole grains. So, to help students understand the importance of a healthy diet, we have provided a “Healthy Diet” essay.

Students can also go through the list of CBSE Essays on different topics. It will help them to improve their writing skills and also increase their scores on the English exam. Moreover, they can participate in different essay writing competitions which are conducted at the school level.

500+ Words Healthy Diet Essay

A healthy diet consists of simple, natural and/or well-cooked foods which promote health and protect us from diseases. It keeps our organ systems functioning well. The diet that we consume is decided by our socio-cultural norms, lifestyle patterns and the type of activities we are engaged in. A healthy diet includes nutrition, nutrients, food groups, a balanced diet and special dietary requirements.

Balanced Diet

A diet that contains all the essential nutrients like proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and vitamins in the proportion required for the normal growth and development of the body is called a balanced diet. The important components of a balanced diet are cereals, pulses, milk, fruits and vegetables, fats and oil. A balanced diet constitutes a healthy diet. Thus, we all should try to follow a balanced diet.

Role of Nutrients

Nutrients that we obtain through food have vital effects on physical growth and development. It also helps in maintaining normal body function, physical activity and health. Nutritious food is thus needed to sustain life and activity. A healthy diet must provide all essential nutrients in the required amounts. Requirements for essential nutrients vary with age, gender, physiological status and physical activity. Dietary intakes lower or higher than the body requirements can lead to undernutrition or overnutrition, respectively.

Eating too little food during certain significant periods of life such as infancy, childhood, adolescence, pregnancy and lactation and eating too much at any age can lead to harmful consequences. An adequate diet, providing all nutrients, is needed throughout our lives. Eating a variety of foods from each food group is crucial for supplying the individual with all the essential nutrients that the body needs, including carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and water.

Special Dietary Requirements

The amount of food or nutrients required by a person in a day depends upon the need for energy. These needs are directly related to age and physical activity. During the rapid growth years, i.e. 12–22 years for boys and 12–18 years for girls, there is a gradual increase in daily food requirements. But as we grow old, our daily need for energy decreases. The amount of energy required by people engaged in low, moderate or high levels of physical activity differs. A sports person always needs to consume more calories than a non-sports person. Similarly, the dietary needs of a woman during pregnancy and lactation are higher.

Before we eat, we should think about what goes on our plate, cup, or bowl. Foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, and lean protein foods should be part of our diet. These contain the nutrients that we need to maintain a heart-healthy eating plan. Eating a healthy diet will keep our body fit, healthy and free from all kinds of diseases. With a healthy body and mind, we can enjoy our life and can achieve whatever we want in our life.

Students must have found the “Healthy Diet” essay useful for improving their essay writing skills. They can get the study material and the latest updates on CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive Exams at BYJU’S.

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Nutrition Month Theme 2023: “Healthy diet, gawing affordable for all!”

• Mark Pere Madrona
• April 21, 2023
• Department of Education , education

Schools across the country will be celebrating the annual National Nutrition Month or “Buwan ng Nutrisyon” this coming July. In connection with this, the National Nutrition Council (NNC) has announced that the theme for this year’s celebration is “Healthy diet gawing affordable for all!”

In a statement posted on its official Facebook page , the NNC explained that this theme highlights “the need to support efforts that will enable Filipinos to have greater access to healthy, safe, and affordable food.” The agency added that this year’s nutrition month serves as a call to action for policy-makers, program managers, and legislators to act on the following issues:

1) Increase availability of nutritious foods such as by giving subsidies, product reformulation and improved food value chains,

2) Reduce the availability of unhealthy food through taxation, restrictions on marketing and consumer education,

3) Rechannel resources to agriculture to enable access to affordable nutritious and safe food,

4) Implement the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition 2023-2028 by scaling up food and nutrition security interventions.

The national nutrition month is celebrated every July as stipulated in Presidential Decree 491, which also mandated the creation of NNC in 1974. It must be noted that during that time, then-President Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. had both executive and legislative powers.

The Department of Education is expected to release an official memorandum in the coming days or weeks pertaining to this. This post will be updated if and when that has been published.  Typically, schools organize various activities and events connected to the nutrition month including essay writing, jingle-making, as well as slogan-making contests.

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The Filipino Scribe (TFS) is managed by Mark Pere Madrona, a multi-awarded writer and licensed professional teacher from the Philippines.

Mr. Madrona earned his master’s degree in history from the University of the Philippines-Diliman last 2020. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in journalism cum laude from the same university back in 2010. His area of interests includes Philippine journalism, history, and politics as well as social media.

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• Data Sources & Methods
• Case Studies
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Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD)

Approximately 3.1 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet ( FAO, 2020 ). Quantifying economic access to a nutritionally high-quality diet is a critical step in developing policies to enable affordable, healthy food for all. The Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD) is a metric developed by the Food Prices for Nutrition Project ,led by researchers at Tufts University in collaboration with the World Bank and IFPRI. The metric yields actionable information on the cost of healthy diets in countries around the world and the extent to which populations can afford to consume these diets.

The CoAHD is a type of food affordability measure, and is one of several market-level metrics included in Data4Diets , along with food consumer price indices and food price volatility metrics . There are several ways of determining food affordability. According to a scoping review conducted by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), food affordability can be measured based on income, social safety net assistance, and household expenditures ( Djimeu et al., 2022 ). The Economist reports annually on food affordability at the country level as a dimension of its Global Food Security Index (GFSI), with metrics that include: changes in food costs reported through food consumer price indices, population under the poverty line, and inequality-adjusted income.

Among the newest and, increasingly, most impactful, approaches to quantifying food affordability is the suite of metrics developed by the Food Prices for Nutrition (FPN) Project . These metrics include the Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD), which is now reported annually in the SOFI report along with other food security measures ( FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO, 2023 ). Other metrics in the suite developed by the FPN examine the cost and affordability of a nutrient-adequate (CoNA) diet and an energy-sufficient diet measured by the cost of caloric adequacy (CoCA), considered of lesser overall diet quality than the healthy diet modeled in the CoAHD.

Method of Construction

The cost of a healthy diet is the monetary cost of purchasing, at current PPP$/person/day, the least expensive foods that are locally available and meet the food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) and the energy requirements of a person at a value of 2330kcal/day. The affordability of a healthy diet is then measured as the ratio of the cost of a healthy diet to the $1.12 food poverty line (52% of the international poverty line of $2.15/day in 2017 PPP$) ( World Bank ).

The CoAHD indicators draw information from four data sources ( FPN ):

• Consumer prices of food items in the local market
• Food composition of each food item to determine their nutrient contribution
• Daily requirements for health that the food items can meet
• Household income or similar data such as wages to determine the affordability of the food items

Additional details of the methodology used to compute these metrics can be found in Herforth et al (2023).

The CoAHD provides useful information on the proportion of the population that can purchase a least-cost healthy diet given their income and the price of food available in local markets. It is a useful indicator to monitor and model the effects of food price variations on populations' healthy diet access across space and over time, including as the result of policy changes or various shocks such as conflict or pandemic disease that could be expected to affect consumer access to healthy foods.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The CoAHD fills a big gap by providing context-specific affordability information for a healthy diet across 174 countries. A strength of this set of metrics is that it is relatively easy and inexpensive to develop and update as it usually pulls from existing, frequently updated, market-level data as opposed to household-level data or individual-level data that are typically collected less frequently.

Because the CoAHD indicator is typically (though not necessarily) calculated from secondary data aggregated across many data points, the accuracy and timeliness of the metric is dependent on the quality and availability of the underlying data, and data quality issues may not be apparent to users of the index.

Data Source

The Food Prices for Nutrition DataHub is a resource housed by the World Bank that provides openly accessible data at the country level on the cost and affordability of healthy diets. Data on the availability and price of food are sourced from the International Comparison Program (ICP). These data are then combined with data on nutrition requirements, food composition, and available income to construct the CoAHD and related indicators that can be accessed through the DataHub.

Links to Guidelines

• Food Prices for Nutrition. Software tools for calculating the Cost of a Healthy Diet. 2023.
• Herforth, A., Holleman, C., Bai, Y. & Masters, W.A. (2023). The cost and affordability of a healthy diet (CoAHD) indicators: methods and data sources.

Links to Case Studies

No case study to show for this indicator.

Links to Validation Studies

No validation study to show for this indicator.

Links to Illustrative Analyses

• FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. (2022). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable. Rome, FAO.
• Masters, W.A., E.M. Martinez, F. Greb, A. Herforth and S.L. Hendriks (2023). Cost and affordability of preparing a basic meal around the world in J. von Braun et al., eds, Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation.
• Masters, W.A., Y. Bai, A. Herforth, D. Sarpong, F. Mishili, J. Kinabo, and J.C. Coates (2018). Measuring the affordability of nutritious diets in Africa: price indexes for diet diversity and the cost of nutrient adequacy. AJAE

Food Security Dimensions

Data collection levels, data sources and methods, food composition databases, world food programme (wfp) vulnerability analysis and mapping (vam), requires food composition database.

Food Composition Databases (FCDB)—sometimes also referred to as Food Composition Tables (FCT) if in printed or PDF format—are collections of data on the nutritional content of foods. They are derived from quantitative analyses of representative samples of foods ( Gibson, 2005 ). FCDBs have multiple uses, including for nutrient analysis of foods from dietary consumption surveys, nutrition labeling, and to inform nutrition-sensitive agricultural policies ( Charrondiere et al., 2011 ). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is the global coordinator of the International Network of Food Data Systems (INFOODS), through which it compiles a directory of national, regional, and international FCDBs that can be useful to those interested in analyzing food and nutrient availability and consumption, food fortification or supplementation programs ( Greenfield & Southgate, 2003 ). In addition, FAO/INFOODS produces guidelines for developing FCDBs , food matching , and converting food data ( FAO/INFOODS, 2018 ).

FCDBs are sometimes available online, but not always. FAO/INFOODS provides contact information and links to country and regional FCDBs. In addition, the ILSI Research Foundation has created the World Nutrient Databases for Dietary Studies (WNDDS), which catalogues 90 electronically available FCDBs and provides detailed information about each one. Electronic access to these data means that the information can be quickly updated, they contain a greater volume of material, and they are readily available for users with internet access ( Greenfield & Southgate, 2003 ). Additionally, online FCDBs make it easier for the information to be reformulated according to the needs of various users.

While some low- and middle-income countries have national FCDBs, they often contain data that is several decades old and/or rely on information that is from another country’s FCDB. This is due to the expense and time-intensive nature of analyzing or gathering nutrient composition data ( Greenfield & Southgate, 2003 ). Frequently, borrowed food composition data comes from the USDA and EU FCDBs, or from other countries in the region and regional FCDBs ( Coates et al., 2017 ). However, nutrient contents of foods can vary due to environmental factors, production, and processing and thus can differ from one country to the next and even within countries ( Greenfield & Southgate, 2003 ). Rapid food processing advancements and globalized food systems can challenge the task of keeping FCDBs both up-to-date and specific to the locale ( Thompson & Subar, 2013 ). These various issues may result in decreased precision when it comes to identifying the nutrient content in a given food.

Given the complexity of FCDBs, adequate training on food composition data use is recommended, to comprehend and use the data. One recommended resource is the FAO e-learning course on food composition data ( Food Composition Data E-learning Course, 2013 ).

• Food composition data have a wide variety of uses, including matching foods with nutrients from dietary assessment data in order to conduct analyses, nutrition labeling, policy making, and nutrition-sensitive agriculture
• Well-developed national FCDBs can offer a picture of the types of food available and consumed
• When FCDBs are paired with dietary consumption data, researchers are able to answer questions about nutrient adequacy in a population

Weaknesses:

• Differences in the development of FCDBs (e.g. nutrient calculations and sampling) can reduce comparability of nutrient data for specific foods across databases
• Adequate training on food composition data use is recommended to comprehend and use the data in FCDBs
• Food composition data that are outdated or from other countries are sometimes relied upon to update the national FCDBs of low- and middle-income countries

The Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (VAM) platform is a central source of food security monitoring data and analysis managed by the World Food Programme (WFP). The platform offers multiple products that allow users to visualize and download data on commodity prices and calculated food security indicators, such as the Food Consumption Score (FCS). In addition, users can access timely geospatial, economic, and food security situational analyses produced by VAM analysts that can offer additional context and insight into a country’s current food security situation.

Two WFP VAM products that are particularly useful for calculating indicators included in the Data4Diets platform include the Economic Explorer and the mVAM Databank. The Economic Explorer , a tool included in the VAM Data Visualization Platform , allows users to visualize and download commodity price data at the country and market levels over time (month and year). The mVAM Databank provides the FCS for select countries, using data collected via mobile technology.

• Contains up-to-date, open data supplemented by dynamic visualizations that allow users to perform preliminary analysis within the platform and download charts as .png files
• Provides monthly and annual data on commodity prices at country and market level
• Multiple types of data and analytic reports provide detailed food security and economic context within individual countries, administrative districts, and markets
• The market data available across commodities, dates, or level of collection is not consistent between countries, which limits inter-country comparability
• mVAM Databank with the FCS is only available for a select number of countries, and not all countries included have multiple years of data available

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Home / Essay Samples / Food / Healthy Food / The Importance of a Healthy Diet

The Importance of a Healthy Diet

• Category: Food
• Topic: Dieting , Healthy Food

Pages: 1 (518 words)

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