Latin America and the Caribbean’s Diet Quality Crisis Put in the Spotlight at Major Regional Report Launch

More than 320 researchers, policymakers, public health practitioners, and food systems experts from across Latin America and the Caribbean gathered online (Spanish and English) in early May 2026 for the two-day launch of a landmark new report on food security and healthy diets (Spanish report), one of the most comprehensive assessments for the region.

The Latin American and Caribbean Landscape Report of Food Security and Healthy Diets, developed by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT together with the Instituto de Nutrición de Centroamérica y Panamá (INCAP), was presented across two events: an English-language session on May 4 and a Spanish-language session on May 5. Participants joined from over 20 countries, including Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, México, the USA, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela.  

A Paradox of the Region

The report’s core finding is striking: Latin America and the Caribbean are among the world’s most important food-exporting regions, yet they have the highest cost of a healthy diet globally, the world’s widest gender gap in food security, and a sugar supply that exceeds their dietary recommendations by 12 times.

These findings, drawn from public datasets, multinational dietary surveys, and systematic literature reviews, were presented by the report’s lead author, Dr. Ramya Ambikapathi, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. Her analysis applied the FAO–WHO Healthy Diets Framework, built around four principles of adequacy, balance, diversity, and moderation, to assess the state of diets across the region.

The conclusion: LAC meets only one of the four principles, diversity, and even dietary diversity falls short of what is needed for health and protection from diet-related diseases.

What the Numbers Reveal

Among the most important data points presented at the launch:

Fruits and vegetables: No country in the region reaches the WHO-recommended 400 grams per person per day. Average consumption in many countries is around 100 grams, less than half the target, even as domestic vegetable supply is higher.

Sugar: The region produces twelve times more sugar than recommended in dietary guidelines. In Honduras, 93% of the population consumes sugary beverages more than once a day.

Gender gap: Women across Latin America and the Caribbean experience significantly higher rates of food insecurity than men. This gap is wider than in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, and it predates the COVID-19 pandemic.

Urban food insecurity: Three out of four people experiencing food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean live in urban and peri-urban areas, a pattern mirrored globally and one that calls for a rethink of where and how interventions are designed.

Voices from Science, Policy, and Practice

The launches brought together leading voices from across disciplines and institutions to respond to the findings and chart a path forward.

Juan Lucas Restrepo, Director General of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, opened the English-language event by calling the report a tool to shift the conversation away from individual choices toward the systems and policies that shape those choices. He emphasized that in Colombia alone, 36% of families cannot afford a nutritious diet even if they allocate their entire income to food.

Maya Rajasekharan, the Alliance's Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, opened the Spanish-language session by naming the central paradox of the report head-on: the region has extraordinary food diversity and agricultural wealth, but that diversity rarely shows up in what people actually eat. 

Fernanda Kroker from INCAP made the generational case: what people eat today shapes the cognitive potential and health of the next generation. Waiting to act means higher costs for families, health systems, and governments down the line.

Vanessa García Larsen, Unit Chief of Risk Factors and Nutrition at PAHO/WHO, walked participants through the international healthy diets framework, explaining how the four principles give governments and institutions a shared language for dietary guidelines, food policies, and nutrition programs. 

Lynnette Neufeld, Director of FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division, praised the report’s use of the Healthy Diets Framework as a step toward a common scientific language and called school meals and local food procurement among the most promising entry points for change.

Jessica Fanzo, Professor of Food Policy and Climate at Johns Hopkins University, drew attention to the importance of regional reports that highlight the role of trade in shaping what people eat, urging the region to redirect agricultural incentives toward diverse, locally consumed nutritious crops and to use public procurement to create stable demand for small-scale farmers.

Carla Mejía, the World Food Programme's Regional Nutrition Advisor, made the investment case. Social protection programs integrated with nutrition interventions generate returns of between 17 and 23 dollars for every dollar invested. Well-designed school feeding programs yield up to 8 dollars in productivity gains for every dollar invested. The tools exist. What's needed, she argued, is agreement on how to translate high-level evidence into measurable programs that reach people,  in secondary cities, in informal markets, in contexts where resilience is lowest.

Inge Brouwer, Director of CGIAR’s Better Diets and Nutrition Science Program, addressed what is arguably the report's most puzzling finding: Latin America and the Caribbean have the world's largest gender gap in food insecurity, bigger than Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, even though women in the region have relatively strong political representation. Her hypothesis: formal rights in one domain don't automatically translate into power in another. Women in the region disproportionately bear the responsibility of feeding families while having less control over household finances. When food runs short, they are typically the ones who eat less. Political representation doesn't fix that.

Camila Corvalán, Professor at the Universidad de Chile and a leading evaluator of food policy in the region, reviewed the lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean’s most successful regulatory interventions — from Mexico’s sugar-sweetened beverage tax to Chile’s integrated food labeling and marketing law to Brazil’s school feeding procurement rules. She argued that progress requires not only restricting unhealthy foods but actively making healthy diets accessible, affordable, and desirable, particularly for the most vulnerable. 

Lina Salazar, Lead Economist, Rural Development, Agriculture and Natural Resources Division of the Inter-American Development Bank, asked the question that cut to the heart of the issue: who is the agri-food system actually working for? More than 60% of the region's cultivated land is used for soy and corn. Subsidies, credit, research, and extension services all follow those crops. Nutrition has never been an explicit goal of agricultural policy — and that, she argued, must change. She also called for better governance, citing European ministries of agriculture that have begun integrating nutrition and food sovereignty into their mandates as a model the region should consider.

Audrey Morris, PAHO’s Regional Food and Nutrition Advisor, highlighted the particular vulnerability of Caribbean small island states to climate shocks, rising food import dependence, and NCDs, and called for multisectoral policies that combine agricultural support, fiscal measures, and food environment regulations.

Daniel Aceves, Director General of Public Health Policy, Mexico, put the numbers in regional context: 4 in 10 school-age children, 5 in 10 adolescents, and 7 in 10 adults in the region are overweight or obese. LAC consumes around 212 kilos of ultra-processed foods per capita per year and between 150 and 169 liters of soft drinks. He noted that the report challenges a long-held assumption that food insecurity is primarily a rural problem, and that urban food insecurity demands the same policy attention that rural areas have historically received.

A Starting Point, Not a Final Word

The launch events were designed not as the end of a conversation but as the beginning of one. Across both sessions, speakers returned to a shared set of themes: the need for better and more disaggregated data; the importance of connecting agricultural, trade, and nutrition policy; integration of food and health systems; the urgency of addressing the gender dimensions of food insecurity; and the potential of the region’s extraordinary biodiversity to nourish its own people more fully.

Marcela Quintero, Associate Director General of the Alliance, closed the Spanish-language session with a call to use the report as a catalyst for communication beyond technical circles, bringing its findings to the public, to policymakers, and to the communities most affected.

The report and its findings will feature in upcoming global forums, and it is available for free download in English and Spanish. Authors also share their reflections. 

The Latin American and Caribbean Landscape Report of Food Security and Healthy Diets was developed by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and the Instituto de Nutrición de Centroamérica y Panamá (INCAP), with support from CGIAR. Report authors include Ramya Ambikapathi, Johanna Castillo, Monica Mazariegos, Jenny Wiegel, Mark Lundy, and Gina Kennedy. Webinar video is available in English and Spanish and the report is in English: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/180958 and in Spanish: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/182733

Featured image credit: Shutterstock