Global Healthy Eating Costs Exceed International Poverty Threshold

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), together with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), has recently released the World Food Security and Nutrition Report 2020 (hereinafter referred to as "the Report"). It is estimated that nearly 690 million people, or 8.9 percent of the world's population, are hungry, an increase of 10 million in one year and nearly 60 million in five years. High costs and low economic affordability mean that billions of people lack access to healthy, nutritious food.

The report's update of key data for China and other populous countries found a significant decline in the number of hungry people worldwide. Despite this, the number of hungry people worldwide has been on a slow increase since 2014 and continues to rise. Currently, Asia remains the region with the largest number of hungry and undernourished people (381 million), with Africa the second fastest growing region (250 million), and again Latin America and the Caribbean (48 million). The number of people who are undernourished or hungry as a percentage of the global population has remained almost unchanged at 8.9%. This means that over the past five years, the growth in the number of hungry people has kept pace with global population growth.

According to the report, a healthy diet is not only about ensuring enough food for survival, but also about nutritious food. But the key barriers to food security today are the high cost of nutritious food and the large number of households that cannot afford a healthy diet. Currently, the cost of a healthy diet far exceeds the international poverty threshold of $1.90/day. Even the cheapest healthy diet costs five times as much as a starchy food for a mere fruit meal. Meanwhile, dairy products, fruits, vegetables and protein-rich foods are the most expensive. According to recent estimates, 3 billion or more people are unable to afford a healthy diet. In sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, 57% of the population cannot afford a healthy diet, even in North America and parts of Europe, and in 2019, between a quarter and a third of the world's children under five (191 million people) will be stunted, too short or too thin, and an additional 38 million children under the age of five will be overweight. At the same time, adult obesity has become a global epidemic.