Sustainable Food Systems Symposium 2024

Healthy diet based poverty lines

17 Sept 2024, 15:50

20m

1.501.1 (Paulinerkirche)

Oral Urbanization and Income Constraints to Food

Speaker

Jonas Stehl (University of Goettingen)

Description

Access to a healthy diet is a fundamental human right, yet a significant portion of the global population faces barriers to realizing this right. Conventional poverty metrics are designed to adequately capture caloric needs but they are inadequate for capturing other essential nutritional requirements. We propose national poverty lines based on the cost of a healthy diet and explore their key metrics such as headcount ratios and the poverty gap. According to these poverty lines 2,840 million people were poor in 2019 and US$2,293billionperyearwouldbeneededtoliftthemoutofpoverty.Thisisincontrastto648millionpeoplewhoareconsideredtoliveinextremepovertyaccordingtotheWorldBan{k}^{\prime }sconventionalpovertylines.Inthispaper,weproposeameasureofpovertythatisgroundedintheeconomiccostsofmaintainingahealthydiet.Healthydietsareandalwayshavebeenabasicneedandcurrentpovertymeasuresbasedoncaloricsufficiencydonotmeetthisneed.Astheworldmovesclosertoeliminatingextremepoverty,thetraditionalthresholdofUS$ 2.15 will become increasingly socially irrelevant in many parts of the world. An expansion to affordability of healthy diets enables individuals to sustain long-term health. Our approach offers a dynamic and adaptable internationally consistent way of assessing poverty, distinct from conventional approaches that often rely on subjective country-specific judgments. We introduce these thresholds as absolute poverty lines in nations with lower incomes, while they encompass a relative dimension in wealthier countries. This leads to a denser distribution of poverty lines compared to current national poverty lines, wherein lower-income countries have higher poverty thresholds while higher-income countries have lower.

The affordability of adequate, let alone healthy, diets is a distant reality for many people worldwide. This new measurement of poverty indicates that 2.9 billion people were living in poverty in 2021 indicating a poverty rate of 39 percent. More than one out of three people globally were not able to afford healthy diets and other essential goods. To overcome this gap, individuals are lacking about US$2.4trillionannually.Ourfindingsunderscoresignificantglobaldifferencesintheaffordabilityofnutritiousdiets.ParticularlyintheGlobalSouth,peoplefaceconsiderablefinancialbarrierstoachievingrecommendednutrientintake,therebyimpedingtheirabilitytosustainlong-termhealthandwell-being.Countriesinsub-SaharanAfricaandSouthAsiaareinparticularneedofsupportconsideringtheirhighburdenrelativetotheirGDP.Weneedtotransformfoodsystemstoprovideequitableaccesstohealthyandsustainabledietsforeveryone.Theglobalincomegaptoaffordahealthydietissubstantialbutmanageable.Toprovideperspectiveonthisfigure,theincomegapin2021amountsto1.2to2.2percentoftheworl{d}^{\prime }stotalannualincomeor0.8to1.6percentofthecombinedwealthofallmillionairesandbillionairesworldwide,dependingonthescenario.Despitethesizableglobalincomegaptoahealthydiet,itisimportanttoalsoconsiderthecoststhatresultfromsuboptimaldietsthroughfactorssuchashealthcarecosts,reducedproductivity,lowereducationalattainment,andincreasedmortalityrates.Forinstance,theglobalcostofdiabetes,towhichunhealthydietscontribute,isestimatedatUS$ 1.3 trillion in 2015 and may increase to US$2.2trillionby2030.Itisprojectedthattheannualhealthcostsassociatedwithnon-communicablediseasesanddiet-relatedmortalitywillamounttomorethanUS$ 1.3 trillion by 2030 and US$2.2trillionby2050,excludingtheadverseimpactsofundernutrition.EconomiclossesattributabletoundernutritionareestimatedatUS$ 3.5 trillion annually. The economic benefits of improving diets have been estimated at US$1to31trillionwhichmaysubstantiallyexceedtheannualglobalpriceofahealthydiet.Inconclusion,despitethesubstantialglobalincomegap,thepotentialeconomicbenefitsresultingfromensuringaffordableaccesstohealthydietsmaysurpassitconsiderably.Considerationofcostavoidanceisthereforeimperativewhenmakinginvestmentstoenhancetheuniversalaffordabilityofanutritiousdiet.AstrikingdisparityemergeswhenwecomparekeymetricsofourpovertylineswiththosebasedontheconventionalUS$ 2.15 IPL and national poverty lines. The number of individuals classified as poor increases by 4.5 and 2.5 times, respectively. The income gap surges by 17 and 4 times, respectively. This highlights that neither the conventional IPL nor national poverty lines adequately capture the extent to which people worldwide struggle to afford nutritious foods. It underscores the substantial obstacles that individuals continue to face in accessing nutritious diets, even if they are not classified as extremely poor by conventional standards. It becomes clear that the current poverty line falls short in addressing the economic accessibility of obtaining nutritious food to meet the dietary requirements for a healthy and active life.

We argue that the understanding of basic needs has developed with economic progress and the reduction in global hunger rates since the development of initial national poverty lines. Standard poverty lines fall short in considering the nutritional requirements essential for individuals to lead active and healthy lives, a pivotal element of food security, and therefore substantially underestimates those who cannot afford to live and active and healthy life. Access to healthy diets is a fundamental human right, and sufficient calorie intake alone leads to poor health in the long run. Poverty lines need to be expanded to encompass economic access to healthy diets to ensure sustainable long-term health.