The number of Kenyans unable to afford a healthy diet increased by 7.7 million, in a span of six years, underscoring the difficulties Kenyans are facing in trying to put a healthy meal on their tables.
According to Food and Agricultural Organisation (Fao), which is an arm of the United Nations, defines the cost of a healthy diet as an indicator that provides national-level estimates of the cost of acquiring the cheapest possible healthy diet in a country, defined as a diet comprising a variety of locally available foods that meet energy and nutritional requirements.
Notably, a healthy diet basket comprises six locally available food groups with a dietary energy intake of 2,330 kcal per day.
The six categories are starchy staples (1160 kcal), animal source (300 kcal), legumes, nuts and seeds (300 kcal), Oils and fats (300 kcal), fruits (160 kcal and vegetables (110 kcal).
Data from Fao’s report dubbed The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, the number of Kenyans unable to put a healthy diet on their tables jumped from 35.1 million to 42.8 million.
This implies that 79.2 percent of Kenyans could not afford basic dietary conditions, making Kenya third highest after Democratic Republic of Congo at 91.4 percent and Burundi at 89.6 percent.
“The increased frequency and intensity of the major drivers, such as the lack of access to and unaffordability of healthy diets, unhealthy food environments, and high and persistent inequality in combination with underlying factors have resulted in increasing numbers of hungry and food-insecure people”, the report notes.
Ethiopia, the region’s most populous country had 54.1 percent of its population unable to afford a healthy diet, lower compared to Uganda and Tanzania. Uganda had the second lowest share of its population suffering from unhealthy diet at 72.5 percent, while Tanzania’s stood at 75.5 percent.
The slow progress in boosting food security and the wide gap in economic access to healthy diets presents a major challenge of attaining zero hunger, five years away from the 2030 deadline.
Thus, there is need to catapult efforts to transform agri-food systems to bolster resilience to primary drivers and address the inequalities that will ensure that healthy diets are affordable for and available to all.
