73% Bangladeshis cannot afford healthy food: Report

A person living in Bangladesh has to spend Tk276 for buying healthy foods daily and 73% of the population does not have the ability to do so.

This information was disclosed in "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022" published jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Unicef, World Food Program and World Health Organisation.

In 2017, about 77.4% of the population of Bangladesh could not afford a healthy diet which has been reduced to 73.5% in 2020.

According to the report, Nepal has the least capacity to buy healthy food among the countries of South Asia. Then comes Pakistan.

India is doing slightly better than Bangladesh while Sri Lanka and Bhutan have the highest capacity of buying healthy food compared to other countries of this region.

On average, 41.1% of people in South Asia are unable to afford healthy food.

The challenges to ending hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition keep growing, reads the report.

The Covid-19 pandemic has further highlighted the fragilities in our agrifood systems and the inequalities in our societies, driving further increases in world hunger and severe food insecurity.

The report says that, despite global progress, trends in child undernutrition – including stunting and wasting, deficiencies in essential micronutrients and overweight and obesity in children, continue to be of great concern.

Dr Shamsun Naher, principal nutrition officer at BIRDEM General Hospital, said, "There has been progress in nutrition in the last few years but not as much as socio-economic development. The decline in people's income during the pandemic is a big reason for that. Rising cost of nutritious food is another factor."

A large portion of the village people are remaining as producers of foods. They also lack awareness about nutritious food, she said.

Ahsan H Mansur, executive director of Policy Research Institute, believes that people are not buying nutritionally enriched food due to habit rather than financial conditions.

"The prices of seasonal vegetables are low in our country. Vegetables are often cheaper than rice. The price of eggs is also low. The price of milk is low in villages. As a result, people can easily consume these nutritious foods if they want," he said.