HEALTHY DIET NOW UNAFFORDABLE FOR A NEARLY HALF OF WORLD’S CHILDREN: SAVE THE CHILDREN ANALYSIS

Toronto, March 25, 2025 – About 1.12 billion children globally – or 48% of the world’s children – are unable to afford a balanced diet, said Save the Children, releasing new data on the eve of the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) summit in Paris [1 & 2].

Hikes in food prices combined with the increasing cost of living around the world has forced millions of families to eat less adequate, less balanced and less diverse food, putting child development and wellbeing at risk, said the aid agency. 

Save the Children analyzed the cost of a healthy diet – defined by the World Health Organization as adequate, balanced, moderate and diverse – in 167 countries for which data was available and found that nearly half of the children in these countries are in families that can’t afford these basics in their communities.

The situation was particularly bad for children in low- and lower-middle income countries, with more than two in every three children – 68% – unable to afford a healthy diet.

The relatively high cost of nutritious foods is one of the greatest obstacles to giving children a healthy diet, said Save the Children. When income is limited, families tend to prioritize the frequency of feeding and fuller stomachs over the quality of foods for young children.

Mayra Alejandra Obregon Ocoro, 29, from Colombia, is a national Youth Coordinator for the Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Movement (SUN CSN), and is attending the Paris summit. She said: 

“The situation faced by nearly half of the world’s children who cannot afford a balanced diet is alarming and reflects a global food crisis that we cannot ignore. In Colombia, a country with deep social inequalities, many children and young people suffer from malnutrition and do not have access to adequate food. Poverty and rising food prices have led families to prioritize quantity over quality, resulting in diets high in carbohydrates and poor in essential nutrients.

“It is critical that leaders attending the N4G summit commit to taking concrete and sustainable actions. I hope they will focus on implementing policies that reduce the cost of healthy food, promote local agriculture, and ensure equitable distribution of resources.”

Sohanur Rahman, 28, Bangladesh, a national Youth Coordinator for the Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Movement, and who is attending the Paris summit said: 

 “In my country Bangladesh, I have seen firsthand how rising food prices, economic inequality, and climate-induced disasters including extreme weather events like floods push families into food insecurity, forcing children to rely on cheap, nutrient-poor diets.  

“At the N4G summit in Paris, leaders must commit to transformative policies that make nutritious food affordable and accessible for all. This includes strengthening social protection programs, supporting small-scale farmers, and investing in climate-resilient agriculture to safeguard food security against climate disasters.”

Hannah Stephenson, Save the Children’s Global Nutrition Lead who is currently in Paris for the N4G Summit, said: 

“The N4G summit is a critical opportunity for the international community to drive progress against malnutrition, putting nutrition at the center of a sustainable development agenda – which in a world where aid cuts are becoming the norm, is more crucial than ever. 

“Healthy diets play a critical role in the prevention of malnutrition, which can have life-long consequences for children. However, they can also be less affordable than unhealthy diets, with globally, nearly half of the world’s children unable to afford a balanced diet. 

“There is an urgent need for collective action to address malnutrition in all its forms—. The health and well-being of millions of children depend on our sustained efforts.”

Save the Children is calling on leaders at the N4G Summit in Paris to strengthen the transition towards sustainable food systems, promote equitable access to nutritious diets, strengthen health systems to make them resilient and increase universal health coverage, strengthen social protection systems and leave no one behind, and empower women while placing them at the heart of nutrition. 

We call on leaders to commit to integrating nutrition outcomes into a wide range of sectors including environment and climate. By prioritizing evidence-based policies, increasing financial commitments, and fostering multi-sectoral collaboration, only then can we drive meaningful progress toward ending malnutrition.

ENDS –

Notes: 

[1] Based on an analysis of 167 countries for which data was available (total child population of 2.32bn), Save the Children estimates that 1.12bn (48%) are unable to afford a healthy diet. The cost of a healthy diet (CoHD) was calculated based on the latest FAO/World Bank CoHD data from 2022. Using an average of monthly inflation rates as per the FAO estimates of food inflation for 2023 – a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities – , the analyses updates the estimate of the CoHD for 2023. All prices were adjusted to 2017 dollars (Purchasing Power Parity, i.e. accounting for differences of prices in different countries). We then looked at how many people in each country cannot afford a healthy diet using the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Database. Finally, we estimate the number of children by looking at the share of children in each wealth or income quintile of the population (using the data compiled from the GLOPOP-S dataset by Ton et al. 2023). The number of children was derived using the UN World Population Prospects.

[2] The Nutrition 4 Growth (N4G) Paris Summit is taking place in Paris, France, from 27-28 March 2025 and is a key stepping stone in 2025 towards galvanizing global and national nutrition actions to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Organized every four years by the host country of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the last N4G Summit was hosted by Japan in 2021, raising $27 billion through 396 commitments from 181 stakeholders in 78 countries. The Summit will announce political and financial commitments, deliver bold and innovative SMART commitments across thematic areas, and present high-level recommendations to mobilize the global and national community to achieve the renewed World Health Assembly (WHA) Global Nutrition Targets, the 2014 Rome Declaration on Nutrition, and accelerate achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The outcomes of the Summit will be endorsed in the Paris 2025 N4G Global Compact.

[3] The SUN Civil Society Network (CSN) encourages the formation of vibrant civil society alliances, with such alliances existing in 39 SUN Countries today. The network represents over 3,000 organisations locally, nationally and internationally. The CSN Secretariat is hosted by Save the Children, in the United Kingdom, overseen by a global steering committee