Latin America, with the highest price of a healthy diet

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published indicators for a healthy diet by country, showing their costs also by food groups and the number of people who cannot afford them.

The data serves as a reminder that the world has progressed in regard supply of sufficient calories to feed the world’s populationthere is still a long way to sustainable nutrition for all people.

The results show that there are billions of people in the world who cannot afford it healthy diet.

Indicators developed by FAO, in collaboration with researchers from Tufts University and the World Bank, for example, reveal that Latin America and the Caribbean record the highest costs of a healthy diet compared to other regions, namely $3.89 per person per day in 2020, and followed by Asia ($3.72), Africa ($3.46), North America and Europe ($3.19) and Oceania ($3.07).

Between 2019 and 2020 Asia had the largest increase in the cost of healthy eating (4.0%)followed by Oceania (3.6%), Latin America and the Caribbean (3.4%), North America and Europe (3.2%) and Africa (2.5%).

Nearly 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2020, an increase of 112 million people from 2019, reflecting the rising costs of healthy eating in 2020.

This figure comes mainly from Asia, where an additional 78 million people could not afford such a diet, followed by Africa (an additional 25 million people) and, to a lesser extent, Latin America and the Caribbean and North America and Europe. (8 million or 1 million more people).

In 12 countries, all of which are in Africa, more than 90% of the population cannot afford a regular healthy diet.

The same is true for more than half population in 53 countries for which data are available. This figure does not reach 1% in 26 countries.

“Eradicating hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms (including malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity) goes beyond getting enough food to survive: what people eat must also be nutritious,” said David Laborde, director of the Department of Agriculture food of the FAO. Economic department.

Laborde added one of the main obstacles is the high price of nutritious food and the low availability of healthy food for a large number of people around the world.