TWN Info Service on Health Issues (Jul26/05)
28 July 2026
Third World Network

UN: One-third of humanity priced out of healthy diets, warns report
Published in SUNS #10489 dated 24 July 2026

Penang, 23 Jul (Kanaga Raja) -- An estimated 2.69 billion people (or 32.7 percent of the world population) were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2025, with more than half (about 1.4 billion) of them living in lower-middle- income countries, according to five United Nations specialized agencies.

In their "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2026" report, released on 21 July, the UN agencies said that the percentage of people unable to afford a healthy diet remains highest in Africa, where it is estimated to have reached 66.6 percent in 2025, more than double the levels currently estimated for Asia (28.9 percent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (25.7 percent).

The report was jointly authored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

IFAD President, Alvaro Lario, said: "SOFI tells us that the cost of a healthy diet continues to rise and that nearly 2.7 billion people may still be unable to afford a healthy diet. Resilient value chains must be a central part of the answer. Our task now is to turn the evidence SOFI provides into investment - and to do so through partnership.

Together, we can build the value chains, market systems and rural economies that make healthy food affordable for all."

WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: "While we welcome the clear progress we have made in reducing hunger, a healthy diet still remains unaffordable for one in three people globally."

"Obesity is rising and progress on maternal and child nutrition is stalling. But we know what works: policies that make healthy food the easy choice, promoting breastfeeding, front-of-pack labelling, taxing unhealthy products, and protecting children from harmful marketing. Healthy diets are not a luxury - they are the foundation of health and must be within everyone's reach," he added.

WFP Acting Executive Director, Carl Skau, said: "Behind every number in this report is a family counting the cost of food. Conflict and climate shocks push them further beyond their means."

"We must continue working with partner agencies, governments and communities to build food systems that hold up under shock, so families can afford nutritious diets, even in times of crisis. We now need sustained investment to match the scale of the challenge," Skau added.

"The report shows that progress is possible, but we must move faster. Ending hunger and making healthy diets affordable requires political commitment, sustained investment and enabling policies," said the FAO Director- General Qu Dongyu.

"Recent crises - from natural disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic to man-made disasters like hotspots of conflicts, the war in Ukraine, the Gaza crisis, and the recent Strait of Hormuz disruption - have demonstrated both the resilience of agrifood systems and the need to strengthen them further to better serve the world's most vulnerable people, farmers and consumers," he added.

UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell, said: "Every child deserves the chance to grow and develop to their full potential, and this starts with access to nutritious, affordable food. This report is a stark reminder that food systems fail millions of children and families. Food, health, education and social protection must go hand in hand to protect the most vulnerable children and women from global shocks."

COST OF HEALTHY DIET

According to the SOFI report, inflation has continued to raise food prices in 2025. Assuming that the prices of foods that contribute to a healthy diet have increased in line with the overall rise in food inflation, this will have pushed the global mean cost of a healthy diet up to 4.28 PPP (purchasing power parity) dollars in 2025, from 3.44 PPP dollars in 2021 and 2.94 PPP dollars in 2017.

Among the main regions of the world, the cost of a healthy diet (CoHD) appears highest in Latin America and the Caribbean, where it is estimated to have reached 4.91 PPP dollars in 2025, compared to 4.35 PPP dollars in Africa, 4.33 PPP dollars in Asia, and 3.64 PPP dollars in Northern America and Europe, it said.

However, the regional values also mask important differences at the sub-regional level. The average CoHD in Latin America and the Caribbean is highest in the Caribbean, where it may have reached 6.04 PPP dollars in 2025, and lowest in Central America  (4.66 PPP dollars), said the report.

Among the sub-regions that compose Northern America and Europe, Southern Europe had the highest average CoHD in 2025 (4.62 PPP dollars) while the lowest was seen in Northern America (3.02 PPP dollars).

Comparing all sub-regions, the report noted that in 2025, the average CoHD in the Caribbean was double the estimated value for Northern America.

"From the perspective of the World Bank income classification of countries, the CoHD is, on average, higher in lower-middle-income countries (4.36 PPP dollars in 2025) and lower in low-income countries (4.05 PPP dollars), and remaining closer to the global average in upper-middle- and high-income countries."

Based on the latest updates, it is estimated that in 2021, which is the reference year for the prices of foods that contribute to a healthy diet, 2.97 billion people may have been unable to afford a healthy diet, corresponding to 37.4 percent of the world population, said the report.

More importantly, the report said the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet may have fallen globally - following a peak of 3.13 billion in 2020 - to about 2.69 billion (or 32.7 percent of the world population) in 2025.

The overall decreasing trend implies that the CoHD, driven by the increase in food prices, may have risen less relative to total income, it suggested.

The percentage of people unable to afford a healthy diet remains highest in Africa, where it is estimated to have reached 66.6 percent in 2025, more than double the levels currently estimated for Asia (28.9 percent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (25.7 percent), it said.

It said the differences have increased since 2021 due to diverging trends, with the prevalence of unaffordability of a healthy diet (PUA) increasing in Africa, but falling in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Northern America and Europe.

When considering the distribution by country income group, the report found that more than half (about 1.4 billion) of the almost 2.7 billion people who are estimated to be unable to afford a healthy diet in 2025 live in lower-middle-income countries.

It also noted that 750 million people living in upper-middle-income and high-income countries cannot afford healthy diets, reflecting the fact that even in more affluent societies, agrifood systems still fail to make healthy diets universally accessible.

DIETARY DIVERSITY

According to the report, unhealthy diets are a common cause of all forms of malnutrition.

It said evidence suggests that dietary patterns are changing rapidly almost everywhere, with reduced intake of diverse nutritious foods and increasing consumption of less nutritious so-called ultra-processed foods, increasing the prevalence and consequences of diet-related non-communicable diseases globally.

The report said that unhealthy diets are among the leading causes of premature mortality from diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, stroke and cancer.

Notably, the same dietary trends are also exacerbating existing challenges of micro-nutrient deficiencies in all world regions, it added.

The agrifood systems that enable such shifting consumption patterns also contribute to loss of agro-biodiversity, intensive use of productive resources, and increased greenhouse gas emissions, the report stressed.

True progress towards sustainable development cannot be achieved without addressing these issues, yet until last year, diets have remained unmeasured as part of the Sustainable Development Goal framework, it noted.

However, in March 2025, the United Nations Statistical Commission approved Minimum Dietary Diversity for Children (MDD-C) and Women (MDD-W) as new indicators for SDG 2 monitoring.

These indicators provide a simple assessment of dietary diversity by counting the number of predefined food groups consumed during the previous 24 hours, at the population level.

Based on these metrics, the report pointed out that globally, less than one-third of children aged 6 to 23 months (30.8 percent) achieved minimum dietary diversity between 2018 and 2024 - a prevalence level that has remained largely unchanged over the past decade (prevalence was 29.4 percent between 2011 and 2017).

"This means that more than two-thirds of young children worldwide did not consume sufficiently diverse diets, potentially limiting their intake of essential vitamins, minerals and other nutrients critical for healthy growth and development."

The report said that this is particularly worrisome as nutrient-poor diets are a key determinant for all forms of malnutrition among children.

Globally, an estimated 150.2 million children under five years of age are stunted, 42.8 million are affected by wasting, and obesity has overtaken underweight as the more dominant form of malnutrition among school-age children and adolescents, it added.

Furthermore, disparities in children's diets are observed across regions. In Africa, only one out of five children aged 6 to 23 months (20.5 percent) achieved minimum dietary diversity, compared to 34.9 percent of children in Asia in the same reporting period.

Meanwhile, Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women is a simple population-level indicator that measures the proportion of women aged 15 to 49 years who consumed at least five out of ten predefined food groups in the previous 24 hours.

Evidence shows that women who meet this threshold are more likely to achieve adequate micro-nutrient intakes than those who consume fewer than five food groups in a day, said the report.

However, it said that a large proportion of women worldwide still lack minimally diverse diets, placing them at higher risk of not consuming sufficient essential micro-nutrients, aligned with established requirements.

Globally, only 62.7 percent of women aged 15 to 49 years achieved minimum dietary diversity between 2021 and 2025, meaning that about one in three did not.

This is very similar to the prevalence of 65.0 percent reported in the 2025 edition of this report, based on data pooled from 2020 to 2024, and indicates that there has been virtually no progress in improving women's diets worldwide since the reporting period last year.

Moreover, disparities in regional estimates were observed, with the lowest percentage of women aged 15 to 49 years achieving minimum dietary diversity observed in Africa (43.0 percent), followed by Asia (65.0 percent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (77.5 percent), while the highest was recorded in Northern America and Europe (79.8 percent), said the report. +