Six Mega Trends driving nutritional and dietary changes in Asia, as per the latest EIU Report - Food for Thought – Eating Better

• Urbanisation is leading to lower nutritional outcomes across Asia - Top seven global cities by population will be Asian by 2030
• Per-capita daily calorie intake increased to 3,060 and 2,700 calories in East and South Asia respectively by 2015, due to growing food imports and boom in Asia’s processed food industry
• 90% of global supply of rice is still consumed in Asia, wheat consumption has also increased to 23.4m tonnes in 2016–17
• Economic growth is not positively impacting nutrition levels - In South Asia, prevalence of underweight adults has barely decreased despite solid economic performance
• Insufficient quality of nutrition awareness is noted in Asia besides structural gender inequality
• Food advertising growing across Asia and social media contribute to consumption patterns

June 3, 2019: Cargill along with Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released a report titled ‘Food for Thought - Eating Better’, the last report in the five-part research series. This report highlights two sides of Asia’s nutritional arc through examining dietary changes across the region and summarizing it in six megatrends that are driving these trends - Quality not Quantity, Urbanisation and Income, Obesity & Micro Nutrients, Diverging Outcomes, Low Nutritional Awareness, and Advertising and Social Media.

Quality not Quantity:  The need to switch from ‘more’ food to ‘better’ food will be the tenet for the coming years. Increase in the per capita income and calorie intake graph shows a significant growth in the quantity of food consumed, with most countries consuming more than 2,500 calories per capita daily. As a result, growth in calorie intake is moderating, composition of diets is changing quickly with a growing consumption of protein, especially meat and fish. Asia’s packaged food sector has experienced 4% growth in 2017, highlighting the increase in the consumption of processed food as it is more convenient for the consumers and does not bereave nutritional requirement.

Urbanization and income rise lead to a significant nutritional shift: The rapid increase in people moving to urban areas, along with rise in income amongst consumers, has resulted in growing consumer spending, especially on food.  Urbanisation and income growth work together to fuel the nutritive change creating sufficient scale economies, driving fast food outlets and supermarkets to build chains. It is also believed to encourage less active lifestyles and greater consumption of convenience food.

Obesity and Micronutrients: Today, obesity is also on the rise in the likes of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Pakistan as consumption of sugary beverages and processed foods increase. Urbanisation has a direct correlation with obesity. Diets deteriorate during migration to cities, thereby, confirming that nutritional changes occur as people move to urban areas. People in less-developed countries with lower Gross National Income (GNI) per capita are more vulnerable to the negative health consequences of urbanisation. Whilst the calorie intake is increasing, the quality of the diet is not. This leads to micronutrient deficiency or “hidden hunger” – people are both overweight or appear healthy but are missing vital nutrients, creating one of the more worrying trends in the region.

Diverging Nutritional Outcomes: Unequal nutritional outcomes stems from Asia’s growing inequality. Despite significant GDP growth across the region, undernutrition is still a significant concern in Asia, even as obesity grows. Lower levels of education and literacy among mothers also affect nutritional outcomes. The nutrition–inequality nexus does not only express itself in undernutrition. Poor are also vulnerable to over-nutrition, with overweight and obesity increasing among segments of the urban-dwelling poor

Low Nutritional Awareness – Awareness about both undernutrition and over-nutrition varies greatly by country and income level and is low in the region. There is a need for greater consumer education across the board. Awareness is especially important among mothers as mothers are the first source of nutrition for a child for “first thousand days” of life. Adults also need to be better educated about the dangers of obesogenic foods and importance of physical exercise

Social Media & Advertising shaping food trends: The intensity of food advertising in Asia is growing however regulators are increasingly stepping in. Governments including Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea have stepped in to restrict and restrain some types of advertising. By country, Singapore and the Philippines have seen the largest increases in GDA labelling adoption since 2012, with Malaysia and Thailand in the top four for total adoption rates.

Social media will undoubtedly become a key form of communication between consumers and stakeholders in the food industry. Beyond driving trends, it is also likely to become a key channel for advertising and consumer engagement. Growing social media prominence will provide opportunities for companies in the food industry, but it is also likely to spur efforts to closely monitor and regulate this space.

However, there are opportunities for stakeholders to address the above trends. Food fortification and reformulation will remain powerful tools for tackling undernutrition as the former is an efficient and cost-effective way to reduce obesogenic ingredients. More focus is needed on affordable and quality food in urban environments. Good nutrition needs to be driven by enabling food systems and single-target policies will not be sufficient. Policies on health and nutrition will vary from prescription to advocacy and concerted action has more impact than relying on the trickle-down effects of economic growth. Clearly there are no simple solutions, hence the need for policies and programs to help tackle this effectively. In conclusion, efforts that promote the most fundamental aspects of human health , nutrition and hygiene should undoubtedly be a priority.

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