A report into the state of global nutrition has found that worldwide, diets are not getting healthier and global food demand is adversely impacting the environment.

According to the Global Nutrition Report, diets have not improved over the last decade. For example, fruit and vegetable intake is still around 50% below the recommended level of five servings per day. However, red and processed meat intake is on the increase and is now almost five times the maximum level of one serving per week.

The report noted that over 40% of adults around the world are now overweight or obese – that is 2.2 billion people. At the same time, over 149 million children under the age of five are stunted, 45 million are wasted and 38 million are overweight.

The Covid-19 pandemic has not helped. It has pushed an estimated additional 155 million people into extreme poverty, while those who are obese or have diet-related chronic diseases are more vulnerable to the virus.

Meanwhile, the impact on the planet is huge. Global food demand is now creating 35% of all greenhouse emissions and using substantial and rising amounts of environmental resources.

Compared to 2010, the environmental impact of food demand increased by as much as 14%, with animal-source foods responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions and land use.

Northern American diets have the greatest environmental impact, while African and Asian diets have the least. However, no region in the world is on track to meet the set of UN Sustainable Development Goals aimed at limiting the health and environmental burdens related to diets and the food system, the report found. 

When it came to Ireland specifically, it was deemed to be "off course" to meet all targets for maternal, infant and young child nutrition. Furthermore, progress could not be assessed in a number of areas, due to insufficient data. For example, there was insufficient data to assess the progress that Ireland has made towards achieving the exclusive breastfeeding target.

The report warned that worldwide, deaths attributable to poor diets have grown by 15% since 2010, more rapidly than population growth of just over 1% per year in the same period.

“The high human, environmental and economic costs of continuing our current trajectory are so significant that we will pay a far higher price if we fail to act,” it stated.

The report acknowledged that worldwide, the funding needed to meet nutrition targets is rising, especially due to the Covid pandemic. However, it insisted that the total economic gains to society of investing in nutrition would far exceed this, potentially reaching $5.7 trillion a year by 2030.

“It’s not enough to just commit to targets, but it is important to leverage resources towards sustainable approaches to tackle poor diet and malnutrition in all its forms.

“To this end, the Global Nutrition Report team has developed data tools to not only monitor progress in the nutrition commitments, but also foster accountability,” explained one of the report’s lead authors, Marco Springmann, a senior researcher in environmental sustainability and public health at the University of Oxford in the UK.

The full report can be viewed here.