Healthy diets are affordable but often displaced by other foods in Indonesia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11929464 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Leah Costlow (0009-0006-7170-8630, Michigan State University, corresponding author), Rachel Gilbert (0000-0003-1165-9655, Tufts University), William A Masters (0000-0002-4546-7291, Tufts University), Flaminia Ortenzi (0000-0001-5343-2825, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition), Ty Beal (0000-0002-0398-9825, American Society for Nutrition), Ashish Deo, Widya Sutiyo (W WF-I nd on es ia), Sutamara Lasurdi Noor (W WF-I nd on es ia), Sutamara Noor (0000-0002-9612-0175), William González (0000-0002-2682-0918, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 140 |
| Pages | 103076-103076 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Food Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0306-9192 • E-ISSN: 1873-5657 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.foodpol.2026.103076 |
| OpenAlex | W7140039153 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 37 |
In places where healthy diets are affordable, other factors may contribute to poor diets. • We use Indonesia as a case study for analyzing economic and behavioral barriers to consumption of healthy diets. • In Indonesia, healthy diets are affordable but not chosen. • Consumption of unhealthy discretionary foods is high for households of all incomes. • Nutrient and food group adequacy are low for households of all incomes. New methods for modeling least-cost diets that meet nutritional requirements for health have emerged as important tools for informing nutrition policy and programming around the world. This study uses the cost of a healthy diet to inform targeted nutrition programming in Indonesia. We combine detailed retail prices and household survey data from Indonesia to describe how reported consumption and expenditure patterns across all levels of household income diverge from least cost healthy diets using items from nearby markets. We examine regional price variations, identify households with insufficient income for healthy diets, and analyze the nutrient adequacy of reported consumption patterns. We find that household food spending was sufficient to meet national dietary guidelines using the least expensive locally available items for over 98% of Indonesians, but almost all households consume substantial quantities of discretionary foods and mixed dishes while consuming too little energy from fruits, vegetables, and legumes, nuts, and seeds. Households with higher incomes have higher nutrient adequacy and are closer to meeting local dietary guidelines, but still fall short of recommendations. These findings shed new light on how actual food demand differs from least-cost healthy diets, due to factors other than affordability, such as taste, convenience, and aspirations shaped by marketing and other sociocultural influences
Consumption (sociology · Food consumption · Food prices · Healthy diet · Healthy food · Household income · Low income · Nutrient · Child Nutrition and Water Access · Economics of Agriculture and Food Markets · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet
Nutritional Epidemiology
Changes in food purchases after the Chilean policies on food labelling, marketing, and sales in schools
Concepts and critical perspectives for food environment research
Misreporting of energy and micronutrient intake estimated by food records and 24 hour recalls, control and adjustment methods in practice
Consumption of ultra-processed foods and health status
The nutrition transition to a stage of high obesity and noncommunicable disease prevalence dominated by ultra‐processed foods is not inevitable
Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis
Cost and affordability of a healthy diet for urban populations in Thailand and the Philippines before and during the Covid-19 pandemic
Food Composition Tables in Southeast Asia
Energy adjustment of nutrient intakes is preferable to adjustment using body weight and physical activity in epidemiological analyses
Cost and affordability of three levels of diet quality for urban households in Colombia
People with a body mass index ⩾30 under-report their dietary intake
Filling a dietary data gap? Validation of the adult male equivalent method of estimating individual nutrient intakes from household-level data in Ethiopia and Bangladesh
Trade policy reform, retail food prices and access to healthy diets worldwide
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |