Equity and equality in diets and nutrition: Frameworks, evidence, and four country case studies

Abstract

Who is malnourished, why some people have access to diverse and healthy diets while others do not, and the lifelong and intergenerational consequences of these situations are questions that are central to why we care about food and nutrition equity – but these questions are often overlooked in research and practice. The purpose of this paper is to review recent work on equity and equality in the field of food, diets and nutrition, and to provide empirical case-studies demonstrating issues and solutions in practice, in order to move the field forward coherently. The Nutrition Equity Framework illustrates how unfairness, injustice and exclusion condition deep drivers of inequity that lead to unequal diet and nutrition outcomes. We use the framework to structure four case-studies from Brazil, South Africa, Vietnam and the UK on how researchers and activists are involved in the struggle for fair and just diets that are healthier and more sustainable. Comparison across the four case-studies provides a useful illustration of how diet and nutrition equity dynamics can play out in diverse ways depending on national historical and contemporary contexts; but at the same time, we see some parallel trends and characteristics suggesting common drivers of unhealthy and inequitable diets. In terms of action, equity can be operationalized in the positive as the need for recognition, representation and redistribution with relation to marginalized population groups, and the paper ends with suggestions from the literature on how to take this forward in research and action.