SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

In Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T), about 512,000 peo­ple, or rough­ly 36.8 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, can­not af­ford a healthy di­et.

Close to 200,000 cit­i­zens are un­der­nour­ished.

Around 100,000 chil­dren un­der the age of five are stunt­ed, and few­er than 100,000 ba­bies are born with a low birth­weight.

Few­er than 100,000 chil­dren be­low the age of five are over­weight.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 300,000 in­di­vid­u­als 18 years and un­der are obese.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, about 100,000 women aged 15 to 49 are af­fect­ed by anaemia.

These sta­tis­tics were high­light­ed in the 2025 “State of Food Se­cu­ri­ty and Nu­tri­tion in the World-Ad­dress­ing High Food Price In­fla­tion for Food Se­cu­ri­ty and Nu­tri­tion” re­port, which ex­plored the caus­es and im­pacts of food in­fla­tion, analysed its ef­fects on dif­fer­ent food groups and di­et af­ford­abil­i­ty to help coun­tries end hunger, food in­se­cu­ri­ty and all forms of mal­nu­tri­tion.

The 234-page re­port, pub­lished in Feb­ru­ary 2026, was pre­pared by the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tions, UNICEF, the In­ter­na­tion­al Fund for Agri­cul­tur­al De­vel­op­ment, the World Food Pro­gramme and the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion.

T&T is just one of over 100 coun­tries world­wide men­tioned in the re­port, based on da­ta gath­ered from 2017 to 2024 on food in­se­cu­ri­ty and food price in­fla­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, da­ta com­piled over the last ten years showed an up­ward trend in the pro­por­tion of T&T’s pop­u­la­tion un­able to af­ford a healthy di­et.

In 2017, 31.5 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion (441,000) could not af­ford a nu­tri­ent-dense di­et.

By 2019, that fig­ure climbed to 32.8 per cent, rep­re­sent­ing 459,200 peo­ple un­able to af­ford a well-bal­anced meal.

The most dra­mat­ic spike oc­curred dur­ing the height of the pan­dem­ic in 2021, when the pro­por­tion reached a stag­ger­ing 38.6 per cent (540,400 peo­ple).

As the pan­dem­ic drew to a close in 2023, the num­ber of peo­ple in T&T un­able to af­ford a nu­tri­tious di­et de­creased to 37.9 per cent, or 530,600.

Head­ing in­to 2024, the fig­ure dropped slight­ly to 36.8 per cent (515,200 peo­ple).

Sta­tis­tics al­so showed that 200,000 peo­ple in T&T were un­der­nour­ished be­tween 2022 and 2024.

In 2024, few­er than 100,000 chil­dren un­der five years old were clas­si­fied as stunt­ed.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100,000 chil­dren be­low the age of five were al­so iden­ti­fied as over­weight in 2024.

Around 300,000 adults aged 18 and un­der were record­ed as be­ing obese in 2022, and 100,000 women in the age brack­et 15 to 49 were anaemic by 2023.

Few­er than 100,000 ba­bies were doc­u­ment­ed as hav­ing low birth­weight in 2020.

From 2022 to 2024, the coun­try had 400,000 peo­ple fac­ing mod­er­ate or se­vere food in­se­cu­ri­ty.

In a dif­fer­ent sec­tion of the re­port, it in­di­cat­ed that the preva­lence of un­der­nour­ish­ment in the to­tal pop­u­la­tion was 11.2 per cent, or 156,800 peo­ple, be­tween 2022 and 2024.

The preva­lence of stunt­ing in chil­dren un­der age five was 7.8 per cent in 2024.

Among chil­dren un­der five years old, about 15 per cent were said to be over­weight in 2024.

About 28.1 per cent of the adult pop­u­la­tion un­der 18 years old were con­sid­ered obese in 2022.

In 2020, the preva­lence of low birth­weight was 16.3 per cent.

World be­hind on
end­ing hunger

The re­port said that as 2030 nears, the world is sig­nif­i­cant­ly be­hind on achiev­ing Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goal 2, to end hunger, achieve food se­cu­ri­ty, im­prove nu­tri­tion and pro­mote sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, with set­backs due to ex­treme weath­er events, the ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, ris­ing food prices and geopo­lit­i­cal dis­rup­tions such as the war in Ukraine.

While there have been signs of re­cov­ery in re­cent years, per­sis­tent in­fla­tion has slowed this progress, con­tin­u­ing to un­der­mine pur­chas­ing pow­er and ac­cess to healthy di­ets.

In 2024, the cost of a healthy di­et (Co­HD) was high­est in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean at 5.16 (PPP, pur­chas­ing pow­er par­i­ty dol­lars), with a 7.6 per cent in­crease be­tween 2022 and 2023, fol­lowed by a 3.8 per cent in­crease be­tween 2023 and 2024.

By 2024, the pop­u­la­tion in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean un­able to af­ford a healthy di­et had reached 181.9 mil­lion.

World­wide, an es­ti­mat­ed 31.9 per cent of peo­ple (2.60 bil­lion) were un­able to af­ford a healthy di­et in 2024, com­pared with 3.35 per cent (2.68 bil­lion) in 2022.

A healthy di­et is sim­ply a mix of nu­tri­tious foods, in­clud­ing fresh fruits, a va­ri­ety of veg­eta­bles and mod­er­ate amounts of meat.

Eat­ing healthy is crit­i­cal to pre­vent­ing mal­nu­tri­tion, child stunt­ing and wast­ing, mi­cronu­tri­ent de­fi­cien­cies and over­weight or obe­si­ty.

Con­sum­ing bal­anced meals al­so re­duces the risk of non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases, di­a­betes and can­cers.

The re­port stat­ed that the cost of a healthy di­et (Co­HD) in T&T rose from 3.72 pur­chas­ing pow­er par­i­ty (PPP dol­lars per day, per per­son) in 2017 to 5.56 (PPP dol­lars per day, per per­son) in 2024.

Food prices rose through­out 2023 and 2024, push­ing up the av­er­age cost of a healthy di­et glob­al­ly to 4.46 (PPP) dol­lars per per­son per day, up from 4.30 PPP dol­lars in 2023 and 4.01 PPP dol­lars in 2022.

The re­port stat­ed that in 2024, up­per and low­er-mid­dle-in­come coun­tries record­ed the high­est av­er­age cost of a healthy di­et at 4.83 PPP dol­lars per day, while low­er-mid­dle-in­come coun­tries fol­lowed close­ly at 4.48 PPP dol­lars per day.

About one-third (32 per cent) of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion was un­able to af­ford a healthy di­et in 2024, and in­fla­tion might have con­tributed to per­sis­tent­ly high lev­els of un­af­ford­abil­i­ty.

More nu­tri­ent-dense food groups, such as veg­eta­bles, an­i­mal-source foods and fruits, were con­sis­tent­ly ranked as the most ex­pen­sive.

In 2021, veg­eta­bles world­wide were gen­er­al­ly 11.9 times more ex­pen­sive than ba­sic starchy sta­ples.

An­i­mal-source foods and fruits were 9.1 and 7.2 times prici­er, re­spec­tive­ly.

“These en­dur­ing price dif­fer­en­tials un­der­score the eco­nom­ic bar­ri­ers many house­holds face in ac­cess­ing a healthy di­et,” the re­port stat­ed.

It al­so not­ed that in­fla­tion has be­come one of the top wor­ries world­wide, sur­pass­ing fears of crime, vi­o­lence and pover­ty.

The re­port stat­ed that glob­al price da­ta re­vealed a per­sis­tent dis­par­i­ty be­tween the price per kilo­calo­rie of ba­sic starchy sta­ples and that of more nu­tri­ent-dense food groups, with sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions for di­et qual­i­ty and af­ford­abil­i­ty.

When in­fla­tion makes nu­tri­tious foods less af­ford­able, it be­comes tougher for every­one to main­tain a healthy di­et.

The re­port point­ed out that price pre­mi­ums for veg­eta­bles, fruits and an­i­mal-source foods re­main sub­stan­tial and volatile, re­in­forc­ing eco­nom­ic bar­ri­ers to the con­sump­tion of healthy di­ets.

“The volatil­i­ty of these prices is am­pli­fied by fac­tors such as per­isha­bil­i­ty, sea­son­al sup­ply fluc­tu­a­tions and fre­quent dis­rup­tions along sup­ply chains,” the re­port stat­ed.

De­spite the in­crease in food prices in 2024, the re­port stat­ed that the num­ber of peo­ple un­able to af­ford a healthy di­et in the world fell from 2.76 bil­lion in 2019 to 2.60 bil­lion in 2024, which was fu­elled by an eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery from the pan­dem­ic that has nev­er­the­less been un­even across re­gions and coun­try in­come groups.

De­spite ad­e­quate glob­al food pro­duc­tion, mil­lions of peo­ple go hun­gry or are mal­nour­ished be­cause safe and nu­tri­tious food is not avail­able, sim­ply not ac­ces­si­ble or not af­ford­able.

The re­port in­di­cat­ed that coun­tries lacked suf­fi­cient da­ta or were off track to achieve the 2030 glob­al nu­tri­tion tar­gets.

In 2024, an es­ti­mat­ed 7.8 mil­lion peo­ple in the Caribbean faced chron­ic hunger.

Out of 203 coun­tries, 139 ex­pe­ri­enced cu­mu­la­tive food price in­fla­tion ex­ceed­ing 25 per cent.

In 49 of these coun­tries, in­fla­tion sur­passed 50 per cent, and in 25 coun­tries, it ex­ceed­ed 100 per cent.

Based on these chal­lenges, the re­port not­ed that elim­i­nat­ing hunger by 2030 re­mains an elu­sive tar­get.

On May 14, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk sent a re­quest for com­ment to Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Van­dana Mo­hit re­gard­ing 36.8 per cent of T&T’s pop­u­la­tion be­ing un­able to af­ford a healthy di­et; she has not re­spond­ed.

Fruits ex­pen­sive
to main­tain

The Na­tion­al Schools Di­etary Ser­vices Ltd (NS­D­SL), which man­ages the School Nu­tri­tion Pro­gramme (SNP) on be­half of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, ad­mit­ted in a 2022 Pub­lic Ac­counts En­ter­pris­es Com­mit­tee re­port that it had to re­move fruits from school­child­ren’s break­fast meals dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

Two fac­tors that con­tributed to this move were the cost and avail­abil­i­ty of fruits.

The com­mit­tee heard that of the $7.4 mil­lion used to pur­chase lo­cal com­modi­ties for the pro­gramme’s meals be­tween Oc­to­ber 2019 and Au­gust 2020, on­ly five per cent was spent on fruits.

This raised con­cerns re­gard­ing the chil­dren’s di­etary re­quire­ments.

The com­mit­tee heard that ris­ing food prices were im­pact­ing the pro­gramme.

The SNP pro­vides 54,000 break­fast meals and 79,000 lunch­es dai­ly to stu­dents in over 800 schools.

The pro­gramme pro­vides ap­prox­i­mate­ly one-quar­ter and one-third of the rec­om­mend­ed di­etary al­lowance of nu­tri­ents for chil­dren through its meals.

The 2021/2022 NS­D­SL ad­min­is­tra­tive re­port stat­ed that “few­er nu­tri­tion­al al­ter­na­tive meal op­tions” in school cafe­te­rias was still a ma­jor de­ter­rent.