38.6% of Bangladeshis unable to afford healthy diet

Around 38.6% of Bangladesh’s population, or nearly 67.8 million people, were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2025, according to a joint UN report.

The figure was revealed in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026, released on Tuesday by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organisation (WHO).

Bangladesh had the second-highest rate of people unable to afford a healthy diet in South Asia, after Pakistan, where the rate was 63%.

The report defines a “healthy diet basket” as a diet that provides 2,330 kilocalories of energy per person per day and includes six food groups: starchy staples, animal-source foods, pulses, nuts and seeds, vegetables, fruits, and oils and fats.

Globally, around 2.69 billion people, or 32.7% of the world’s population, could not afford a healthy diet in 2025. The problem was most severe in Africa, where the rate stood at 66.6%, followed by Asia at 28.9% and Latin America and the Caribbean at 25.7%.

Prof Md Ruhul Amin of Dhaka University’s Institute of Nutrition and Food Science said a healthy diet remained beyond the reach of many low- and lower-middle-income families.

Many people are consuming limited quantities of milk and dairy products, fish, meat and fruits because of their high prices, he said.

“Global price increases quickly affect local markets, but ordinary people do not immediately benefit when prices fall,” he said.

According to the report, the average daily cost of a healthy diet in Bangladesh rose from $3.09 in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms in 2017 to $4.59 in 2025. A significant portion of the cost goes towards animal-source foods, fruits and vegetables.

Bangladesh ranked third in South Asia in terms of the cost of a healthy diet, after Bhutan ($6.17) and Sri Lanka ($5.21). Although Pakistan had the highest proportion of people unable to afford a healthy diet in the region, the average cost of such a diet there was the lowest at $3.94.

However, the report said Bangladeshis’ purchasing power had improved somewhat despite the rising cost of a healthy diet.

In 2017, 62.8% of the population, or around 101.8 million people, could not afford a healthy diet. The figure fell to 38.6%, or around 67.8 million people, in 2025.

The global average cost of a healthy diet also increased from $2.94 in 2017 to $4.28 in 2025. During the same period, the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet fell from 2.97 billion to 2.69 billion.

The report recommended reducing the costs of food production and supply chains, improving transport and storage infrastructure, strengthening market systems and reducing food waste to make healthy diets more affordable.