Global Food Policy Report spotlights need for a shift to sustainable, healthy diets

03 Jun 2024 --- The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has released its 2024 Global Food Policy Report (GFPR), which underscores the importance of transforming complex global food systems to foster sustainable, healthy diets across all demographics. The report aims to be a beacon of practical information amid growing challenges of unhealthy diets, malnutrition and climate change.

“The quality of diets matter. Healthy diets provide the nutrients needed for an active, healthy life. Healthy diets contribute to short- and long-term well-being and productivity, and evidence suggests that improving diets could save one in five lives. Dr. Purnima Menon, senior director, food and nutrition policy, CGIAR and IFPRI, tells Nutrition Insight.

“But for many people, especially in low- and middle-income countries and among vulnerable populations, including women and children, healthy diets are out of reach. Less than half of adults worldwide consume diverse diets, and consumption of foods high in fat, sugar, and salt is rising rapidly among both rural and urban populations in low- and middle-income countries,” Menon notes.

Key global stressors addressed in the report are ways to mitigate the stagnation of undernutrition alleviation efforts and the rampant progression of overweight and obesity. According to IFPRI, many countries are facing a double burden of malnutrition — where undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies coexist with overweight and obesity — or diet-related NCDs. 

“Evidence suggests that poor quality diets are the leading cause of disease worldwide and that one in five lives could be saved by improving diets. Thus, it is imperative that we prioritize improving diets as a critical entry point for addressing all forms of malnutrition and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs),” says Deanna Olney, director, nutrition, diets and health unit of IFPRI and a lead author of the report.

Interconnected approach
The 2024 GFPR: Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Nutrition, co-authored by 41 researchers, provides evidence-based recommendations on making the foods for sustainable healthy diets more desirable, affordable and accessible while considering environmental impacts. 

This holistic approach recognizes the interplay between dietary patterns, food environments, food production, food-related policies, and broader societal and environmental factors. 

“By addressing demand-side challenges, such as affordability and consumer preferences, alongside improving food environments and addressing supply-side issues to enhance the availability of nutritious foods, we can make sustainable healthy diets a reality,” says Purnima Menon, senior director, food and nutrition policy, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and IFPRI, a lead contributor to the report.

The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), the science-policy interface of the UN Committee on World Food Security, has developed a food systems framework to provide a holistic, multisectoral understanding of food systems that places healthy diets as one of the critical goals of food systems transformation, along with economic growth, social equity and environmental sustainability.The cost of a healthy diet is becoming an essential metric in low and middle-income countries. Pictured is Charlotte Hebebrand, director of communications and public affairs at International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

In an adaptation of the HLPE framework, the IFPRI highlights the centrality of consumers, their behaviors, their food environments and food supply chains in determining diets. The framework allows the IFPRI to analyze the range of possible policies and actions to meet measurable goals for food transformation. In line with this, diets are a critical entry point for tackling malnutrition and diet-related NCDs. 

“Our research estimates that more than two billion people, many of them in Africa and South Asia, cannot afford a healthy diet. According to FAO, more than half of children under the age of five and two-thirds of adult women are affected by micronutrient deficiencies,” says Johan Swinnen, director general, IFPRI and managing director, systems transformation, CGIAR.

 According to the report, improving diets is a global imperative that will require addressing multiple issues across food systems to achieve sustainable changes in diets, nutrition and health outcomes.

Meanwhile, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s Food Consumer Observatory revealed that consumers are confused and uncertain about what classifies as ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and how they affect health in the short and long term. Meanwhile, 65% of European consumers believe UPFs are unhealthy and will cause health issues later in life.

Cost is the new metric 
GFPR indicates that “affordability” is a major constraint to healthy diets in low- and middle-income countries. The cost of a healthy diet is a relatively new metric that measures people’s access to a range of safe and nutritious foods. 

Menon explains: “Actions are also needed to enhance affordability, an important aspect of demand, by promoting pro-poor economic growth, realigning agricultural policies to support nutrient-dense foods, and improving infrastructure and logistics to lower the relative cost of healthy foods and improve their accessibility and availability.” 

“In addition, governance and management of conflicts of interest are critical in the context of food systems transformations, given the rising burden of unhealthy diets and consumption of ultra-processed foods along with increasing risk of climate shocks and natural resource degradation around the world.” 

This cost is defined as the least expensive combination of locally available items including fruits, vegetables, and other nutrient-dense foods that align with food-based dietary guidelines. The cost of a healthy diet far exceeds the income of many of the world’s poor, with more than 84% of the population in low-income countries and almost 68% in lower-middle-income countries considered “diet poor.”Citizen agency is now considered a crucial dimension of food security.

According to IFPRI, healthy diets can be made more affordable by accelerating pro-poor economic growth to facilitate more equitable growth and boost income. Well-targeted social protection programs can also reduce diet poverty, with projections showing that a 2% increase in spending on these programs can reduce the diet-poor figure by around 100 million.

The report also shows that socioeconomically disadvantaged groups in high-income countries are disproportionately targeted with child and adolescent-focused advertisements for unhealthy foods and beverages.

“Traditional approaches to malnutrition have focused on providing sufficient quantity of food and on production, without considering the importance of the broader food system, and particularly diet quality, in shaping nutrition and health outcomes. People’s diets are affected by multiple factors that determine the desirability, affordability, accessibility, and availability of diverse, healthy foods,” says Menon. 

“These include components of the agrifood system, including agricultural production, transport logistics, markets and trade, and governance; and external systems, including health, social protection, and women’s empowerment, as well as the natural environment.” 

“Prioritizing diets as a critical entry point for tackling all forms of malnutrition allows us to consider the wide range of possible policies and actions to meet realistic, measurable goals for food systems transformation that supports human and planetary well-being,” she underscores.

Food system approaches
The report underscores the need for collaborative efforts, innovative interventions, food system approaches, sound policies and governance. It provides a roadmap for achieving change in global food systems and creating sustainable, healthy diets. 

“To meet our ambitious global development goals on diets and nutrition, we need innovative research across the food system that informs and supports large-scale equitable impacts.” 

People and the planet are at the heart of our efforts, and so our priorities for research and action center on understanding how to make sustainable healthy diets aspirational, affordable and accessible for all,” explains Ismahane Elouafi, executive managing director of CGIAR. 

The 2024 GFPR emphasizes the need to accelerate action, develop robust financing mechanisms and implement evidence-based policymaking to meet the malnutrition targets set out by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Citizen agency — the ability of different groups and individuals to exert some autonomy over food policy decisions — has been recognized as an important dimension of food security. The concept underpins several transnational movements that aim to make food systems more equitable.

Last year, the World Wildlife Fund headquarters in the Netherlands released a groundbreaking research report about the connection between planetary sustainability and dietary choices based on a study using the Netherlands Nutrition Center’s Wheel of Five and the global EAT-Lancet menu for 2050.

By Inga de Jong