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IntroductionAn accurate understanding of total energy intake, energy requirements for healthy body weights and the resultant imbalance is important for many aspects of dietary analysis. Despite its importance, existing estimates are highly uncertain and not well aligned with trends in body weight and malnutrition, especially at regionally comparable and global levels. We estimated energy intake, energy requirements and energy imbalances at global, regional, national and sociodemographic levels based on anthropometric measures.MethodsWe used predictive equations for estimating energy requirements derived from a comprehensive database of doubly labelled water studies, and paired them with global datasets on body weight, height and physical activity to estimate a new proxy of energy intake. We calculated energy requirements to attain healthy body weights by applying the predictive equations to a body mass index that minimises risks for weight-related diseases and is classified as normal. We calculated energy imbalances as the difference between the estimated intake and energy requirements to attain healthy body weights.ResultsOn average, 2160 kilocalories per person per day (kcal/day) were required in 2020 to sustain measured levels of body weight, height and physical activity (95% CI, 2100 to 2210 kcal/day), ranging from 1980 (95% CI, 1900 to 2060) kcal/day in low-income countries to 2360 (95% CI, 2310 to 2410) kcal/day in high-income countries. The estimated intake exceeded energy requirements to attain healthy body weights by 80 (95% CI, 70 to 100) kcal/day on average, with 192 countries (97%) having average intakes above recommendations, and 6 countries (3%) with intake below, and increasing to 14 (7%) when considering rural residences. Between 1990 and 2020, 50 countries (25%) changed from average intakes below recommendations to intakes above.ConclusionsEstimating total energy intake based on anthropometric measures captures the regional and temporal trends in body weight, height and physical activity. The estimates can be used as a complementary measure to existing proxies of energy intake. Among other things, they can inform misreporting of intake in dietary surveys, uncertainty in the amount of food wasted and the lack of data on at-home production in food availability statistics. Aligning existing measures of food intake with consistent estimates of overall energy intake could improve dietary analyses and policy planning.

Food choices are shifting globally in ways that are negatively affecting both human health and the environment. Here we consider how consuming an additional serving per day of each of 15 foods is associated with 5 health outcomes in adults and 5 aspects of agriculturally driven environmental degradation. We find that while there is substantial variation in the health outcomes of different foods, foods associated with a larger reduction in disease risk for one health outcome are often associated with larger reductions in disease risk for other health outcomes. Likewise, foods with lower impacts on one metric of environmental harm tend to have lower impacts on others. Additionally, of the foods associated with improved health (whole grain cereals, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, olive oil, and fish), all except fish have among the lowest environmental impacts, and fish has markedly lower impacts than red meats and processed meats. Foods associated with the largest negative environmental impacts—unprocessed and processed red meat—are consistently associated with the largest increases in disease risk. Thus, dietary transitions toward greater consumption of healthier foods would generally improve environmental sustainability, although processed foods high in sugars harm health but can have relatively low environmental impacts. These findings could help consumers, policy makers, and food companies to better understand the multiple health and environmental implications of food choices.

What we eat greatly influences our personal health and the environment we all share. Recent analyses have highlighted the likely dual health and environmental benefits of reducing the fraction of animalsourced foods in our diets. Here, we couple for the first time, to our knowledge, a region-specific global healthmodel based on dietary and weight-related risk factors with emissions accounting and economic valuation modules to quantify the linked health and environmental consequences of dietary changes. We find that the impacts of dietary changes toward less meat and more plant-based diets vary greatly among regions. The largest absolute environmental and health benefits result from diet shifts in developing countries whereas Western high-income and middle-income countries gain most in per capita terms. Transitioning toward more plant-based diets that are in line with standard dietary guidelines could reduce global mortality by 6–10% and food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 29–70% compared with a reference scenario in 2050. We find that the monetized value of the improvements in health would be comparable with, or exceed, the value of the environmental benefits although the exact valuation method used considerably affects the estimated amounts. Overall, we estimate the economic benefits of improving diets to be 1–31 trillion US dollars, which is equivalent to 0.4–13% of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2050. However, significant changes in the global food system would be necessary for regional diets to match the dietary patterns studied here.

Air pollution increases cardiovascular and respiratory-disease risk, and reduces cognitive and physical performance. Food production, especially of animal products, is a major source of methane and ammonia emissions which contribute to air pollution through the formation of particulate matter and ground-level ozone. Here we show that dietary changes towards more plant-based flexitarian, vegetarian, and vegan diets could lead to meaningful reductions in air pollution with health and economic benefits. Using systems models, we estimated reductions in premature mortality of 108,000-236,000 (3-6%) globally, including 20,000-44,000 (9-21%) in Europe, 14,000-21,000 (12-18%) in North America, and 49,000-121,000 (4-10%) in Eastern Asia. We also estimated greater productivity, increasing economic output by USD 0.6-1.3 trillion (0.5-1.1%). Our findings suggest that incentivising dietary changes towards more plant-based diets could be a valuable mitigation strategy for reducing ambient air pollution and the associated health and economic impacts, especially in regions with intensive agriculture and high population density.

Understanding and communicating the environmental impacts of food products is key to enabling transitions to environmentally sustainable food systems [El Bilali and Allahyari, Inf. Process. Agric. 5, 456–464 (2018)]. While previous analyses compared the impacts of food commodities such as fruits, wheat, and beef [Poore and Nemecek, Science 360, 987–992 (2018)], most food products contain numerous ingredients. However, because the amount of each ingredient in a product is often known only by the manufacturer, it has been difficult to assess their environmental impacts. Here, we develop an approach to overcome this limitation. It uses prior knowledge from ingredient lists to infer the composition of each ingredient, and then pairs this with environmental databases [Poore and Nemecek Science 360, 987–992 (2018); Gephart et al., Nature 597, 360–365 (2021)] to derive estimates of a food product’s environmental impact across four indicators: greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water stress, and eutrophication potential. Using the approach on 57,000 products in the United Kingdom and Ireland shows food types have low (e.g., sugary beverages, fruits, breads), to intermediate (e.g., many desserts, pastries), to high environmental impacts (e.g., meat, fish, cheese). Incorporating NutriScore reveals more nutritious products are often more environmentally sustainable but there are exceptions to this trend, and foods consumers may view as substitutable can have markedly different impacts. Sensitivity analyses indicate the approach is robust to uncertainty in ingredient composition and in most cases sourcing. This approach provides a step toward enabling consumers, retailers, and policy makers to make informed decisions on the environmental impacts of food products.

Meat consumption is rising annually as human populations grow and affluence increases. Godfray et al. review this trend, which has major negative consequences for land and water use and environmental change. Although meat is a concentrated source of nutrients for low-income families, it also enhances the risks of chronic ill health, such as from colorectal cancer and cardiovascular disease. Changing meat consumption habits is a challenge that requires identifying the complex social factors associated with meat eating and developing policies for effective interventions. Science , this issue p. eaam5324 Both the global average per capita consumption of meat and the total amount of meat consumed are rising, driven by increasing average individual incomes and by population growth. The consumption of different types of meat and meat products has substantial effects on people’s health, and livestock production can have major negative effects on the environment. Here, we explore the evidence base for these assertions and the options policy-makers have should they wish to intervene to affect population meat consumption. We highlight where more research is required and the great importance of integrating insights from the natural and social sciences.

The projected rise in food-related greenhouse gas emissions could seriously impede efforts to limit global warming to acceptable levels. Despite that, food production and consumption have long been excluded from climate policies, in part due to concerns about the potential impact on food security. Using a coupled agriculture and health modelling framework, we show that the global climate change mitigation potential of emissions pricing of food commodities could be substantial, and that levying greenhouse gas taxes on food commodities could, if appropriately designed, be a health-promoting climate policy in high-income countries, as well as in most low- and middle-income countries. Sparing food groups known to be beneficial for health from taxation, selectively compensating for income losses associated with tax-related price increases, and using a portion of tax revenues for health promotion are potential policy options that could help avert most of the negative health impacts experienced by vulnerable groups, whilst still promoting changes towards diets which are more environmentally sustainable. A coupled agriculture and health modelling framework shows that levying greenhouse gas taxes on food commodities could be a health-promoting climate policy in high-, mid-, and low-income economies.

The consumption of red and processed meat has been associated with increased mortality from chronic diseases, and as a result, it has been classified by the World Health Organization as carcinogenic (processed meat) and probably carcinogenic (red meat) to humans. One policy response is to regulate red and processed meat consumption similar to other carcinogens and foods of public health concerns. Here we describe a market-based approach of taxing red and processed meat according to its health impacts. We calculated economically optimal tax levels for 149 world regions that would account for (internalize) the health costs associated with ill-health from red and processed meat consumption, and we used a coupled modelling framework to estimate the impacts of optimal taxation on consumption, health costs, and non-communicable disease mortality. Health impacts were estimated using a global comparative risk assessment framework, and economic responses were estimated using international data on health costs, prices, and price elasticities. The health-related costs to society attributable to red and processed meat consumption in 2020 amounted to USD 285 billion (sensitivity intervals based on epidemiological uncertainty (SI), 93-431), three quarters of which were due to processed meat consumption. Under optimal taxation, prices for processed meat increased by 25% on average, ranging from 1% in low-income countries to over 100% in high-income countries, and prices for red meat increased by 4%, ranging from 0.2% to over 20%. Consumption of processed meat decreased by 16% on average, ranging from 1% to 25%, whilst red meat consumption remained stable as substitution for processed meat compensated price-related reductions. The number of deaths attributable to red and processed meat consumption decreased by 9% (222,000; SI, 38,000-357,000), and attributable health costs decreased by 14% (USD 41 billion; SI, 10-57) globally, in each case with greatest reductions in high and middle-income countries. Including the social health cost of red and processed meat consumption in the price of red and processed meat could lead to significant health and environmental benefits, in particular in high and middle-income countries. The optimal tax levels estimated in this study are context-specific and can complement the simple rules of thumb currently used for setting health-motivated tax levels.

Unhealthy diets pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than does unsafe sex, and alcohol, drug, and tobacco use combined. Because much of the world's population is inadequately nourished and many environmental systems and processes are pushed beyond safe boundaries by food production, a global transformation of the food system is urgently needed. More than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume an unhealthy diet that contributes to premature death and morbidity. [...]global food production is the largest pressure caused by humans on Earth, threatening local ecosystems and the stability of the Earth system. With food production causing major global environmental risks, sustainable food production needs to operate within the safe operating space for food systems at all scales on Earth. [...]sustainable food production for about 10 billion people should use no additional land, safeguard existing biodiversity, reduce consumptive water use and manage water responsibly, substantially reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, produce zero carbon dioxide emissions, and cause no further increase in methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Because food systems are a major driver of poor health and environmental degradation, global efforts are urgently needed to collectively transform diets and food production.

The food system is a major driver of climate change, changes in land use, depletion of freshwater resources, and pollution of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems through excessive nitrogen and phosphorus inputs. Here we show that between 2010 and 2050, as a result of expected changes in population and income levels, the environmental effects of the food system could increase by 50–90% in the absence of technological changes and dedicated mitigation measures, reaching levels that are beyond the planetary boundaries that define a safe operating space for humanity. We analyse several options for reducing the environmental effects of the food system, including dietary changes towards healthier, more plant-based diets, improvements in technologies and management, and reductions in food loss and waste. We find that no single measure is enough to keep these effects within all planetary boundaries simultaneously, and that a synergistic combination of measures will be needed to sufficiently mitigate the projected increase in environmental pressures. A global model finds that the environmental impacts of the food system could increase by 60–90% by 2050, and that dietary changes, improvements in technologies and management, and reductions in food loss and waste will all be needed to mitigate these impacts.