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Share of population that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet

What you should know about this indicator

  • This percentage accounts for a portion of income that can be credibly reserved for food, based on observations that the population in low-income countries spend, on average, 52% of their income on food, as derived from the 2017 national accounts household expenditure data of the World Bank's International Comparison Programme (ICP).
  • Income data are provided by the World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform. A value of zero indicates a null or a small number rounded down at the current precision level.
Share of population that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet
Percentage of the total population unable to afford an energy sufficient diet. A healthy diet is considered unaffordable in a country when its cost exceeds 52% of income per capita per day.
Source
Herforth et al. (2022), adapted by World Bank (2023) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 26, 2024
Next expected update
March 2025
Date range
2017–2017
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Food Prices for Nutrition provides indicators on the cost and affordability of healthy diets in each country, showing the population's physical and economic access to sufficient quantities of locally available items for an active and healthy life. It also provides indicators on the cost and affordability of an energy-sufficient diet and of a nutrient-adequate diet. These indicators are explained in detail in the Food Prices for Nutrition DataHub.

Version 2.1 differs from Version 2.0 in that 2.1 reflects the latest income data from the World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) that were updated in the fall of 2023, for the following diet affordability indicators: the share and volume of the population that cannot afford the diet, based on national income distributions expressed in 2017 PPP dollars. Furthermore, Version 2.1 updates and reports population data provided by World Development Indicators.

Retrieved on
March 26, 2024
Retrieved from
https://databank.worldbank.org/source/food-prices-for-nutrition
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Bank, adapted from Herforth, A., Venkat, A., Bai, Y., Costlow, L., Holleman, C. & Masters, W.A. (2022). Methods and options to monitor globally the cost and affordability of a healthy diet. Background paper for The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Rome, FAO.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Share of population that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet”. Our World in Data (2024). Data adapted from Herforth et al. (2022), adapted by World Bank. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-calorie-diet-unaffordable [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Herforth et al. (2022), adapted by World Bank (2023) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Herforth et al. (2022), adapted by World Bank (2023) – processed by Our World in Data. “Share of population that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet” [dataset]. Herforth et al. (2022), adapted by World Bank, “Food Prices for Nutrition 2.1” [original data]. Retrieved June 7, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-calorie-diet-unaffordable