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Data

Inequality in per capita calorie intake

About this data

Source
FAO (2017) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 1, 2017
Date range
2000–2020

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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

FAO – Coefficient of variation in caloric intake

The coefficient variation (CV) measures the inequality of caloric intake across a given population. It represents a statistical measure of the data spread around the mean caloric intake. Higher CV values represent larger levels of dietary inequality.

Where data is sufficiently available, the FAO estimate the CV based on household survey data. Where unavailable, it is calculated based on regression analysis from Gini coefficient, income and food price data.

The CV of caloric intake is reported only for developing countries within the Food Security Indicators.

Retrieved on
January 1, 2017
Retrieved from
https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
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.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The coefficient variation (CV) measures the inequality of caloric intake across a given population. It represents a statistical measure of the data spread around the mean caloric intake. Higher CV values represent larger levels of dietary inequality.

Where data is sufficiently available, the FAO estimate the CV based on household survey data. Where unavailable, it is calculated based on regression analysis from Gini coefficient, income and food price data.

The CV of caloric intake is reported only for developing countries within the Food Security Indicators.

Retrieved on
January 1, 2017
Retrieved from
https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FS
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.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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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: Inequality in per capita calorie intake”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from FAO. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.html [online resource] (archived on May 11, 2026).

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:

FAO (2017) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

FAO (2017) – processed by Our World in Data. “Inequality in per capita calorie intake” [dataset]. FAO, “Coefficient of variation in caloric intake” [original data]. Retrieved May 13, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.html (archived on May 11, 2026).

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Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coefficient-of-variation-cv-in-per-capita-caloric-intake.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear