Nutrition and dietary quality in Sri Lanka: Insights from the 2024-2025 BRIGHT survey

Tinneberg, Pia; Headey, Derek D.; Comstock, Andrew; Ecker, Olivier; Marshall, Quinn; Sitisekara, Hasara; Silva, Renuka; Hülsen, Vivien; Munasinghe, Dilusha; Ranucci, Immacolata; Sabai, Moe; Stifel, Elizabeth; van Asselt, Joanna; Weerasinghe, Krishani

Nutrition and dietary quality in Sri Lanka: Insights from the 2024-2025 BRIGHT survey

Autores

Editor

International Food Policy Research Institute

Descripción

Key findings and policy implications • Dietary quality in Sri Lanka – defined in terms of consumption levels of different healthy food groups – falls well short of the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health’s 2021 Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG) targets, with clear imbalances across food groups. • Heavy dependence on starchy staples. Starchy foods dense in calories but sparse in nutrients provide over 60% of total energy consumption, highlighting a strong over-consumption of rice. • Low consumption of nutrient-rich foods. Intakes of fruits, dark green leafy vegetables (DGLVs), and legumes are at only about one-third of the recommended levels. • Some households report zero consumption of healthy food groups. More than 30% of households report zero consumption of dairy foods in the past 7 days, while 15% report zero consumption of dark green leafy vegetables, and 5% zero fruit, indicating that important foods are absent from many household diets. • Multidimensional dietary deprivation. Nearly all Sri Lankan households are deprived in at least one food group. A typical deprived household falls below the reference threshold in six to seven of eight food groups and consumes only about 37% of the recommended amounts for the foods in which consumption is lower than recommended. • Significant dietary inequality across sectors. Dietary deprivation is most acute in the estate sector, while rural and urban areas fare moderately better. • There is a clear need to promote healthy dietary diversification, especially higher consumption of fruits, legumes, vegetables and dairy, while moderating excess consumption of starchy staples. • Institutionalize regular monitoring of diet deprivation, using the Reference Diet Deprivation (ReDD) index and other dietary indicators to guide targeted nutrition interventions. • Support further research on the drivers of dietary patterns in Sri Lanka to better understand its determinants and differences between sectors.