Share of population that cannot afford a healthy diet
What you should know about this indicator
- A healthy diet meets nutritional standards set by dietary guidelines, with sufficient diversity and quantity within and between food groups to achieve nutrient adequacy and protect against diet-related diseases.
- Non-food expenses are estimated by looking at how much low-income people typically spend on things like housing, clothing, and transportation.
- This amount is calculated as the average share of non-food expenditure for a low-income consumer, multiplied by the international poverty line.
- The average share of non-food expenditure is based on the spending habits of specific income groups (quintiles):
- In upper-middle-income and high-income countries, the first quintile of consumers is considered (the poorest 20% of consumers), where people spend around 54% of their income on non-food needs.
- In low-income and lower-middle-income countries, the second quintile is considered (the second lowest 20% of consumers), where people spend about 37% and 44% of their income on non-food needs, respectively.
- The international poverty lines (in international-$ at 2017 prices) are:
- For low-income countries: $2.15/day.
- For lower-middle-income countries: $3.65/day.
- For upper-middle-income countries: $6.85/day.
- For high-income countries: $24.36/day.
- A value of zero indicates a null or a small number rounded down at the current precision level.
Related research and writing
Sources and processing
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“Data Page: Share of population that cannot afford a healthy diet”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) - “Food Prices”. Data adapted from Herforth et al. (2022), adapted by World Bank. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-healthy-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:
FAO and World Bank (2024), using data and methods from Bai et al. (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in DataFull citation
FAO and World Bank (2024), using data and methods from Bai et al. (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of population that cannot afford a healthy diet” [dataset]. Herforth et al. (2022), adapted by World Bank, “Food Prices for Nutrition 3.0” [original data]. Retrieved December 3, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-healthy-diet-unaffordable