BetterThe same UN report, published the same day by the same five agencies, contains two curves going in opposite directions.
Hunger is falling, third consecutive year. Adult obesity is rising, anaemia among women is worsening, and progress on child nutrition has stalled. None of that is a contradiction, and the reason it is not is the whole point.
Adult obesity went from 12.1% in 2012 to 16.2% in 2024against a target of halting its rise by 2025. Anaemia among women aged 15 to 49 is worsening. 150 million children under five are stunted, and only 30.8% of children aged 6 to 23 months eat a minimally diverse diet.
The WHO Director-General ties it together: a healthy diet remains unaffordable for one in three people globally.
The paradoxTwo curves, one report
Put the two findings next to each other and the instinct is to suspect one of them. Both are measured, both are in the same document, and they describe different things.
Eating enough calories and eating well are not the same measurement. A person can be counted out of hunger and remain, by every other indicator in the report, badly fed.
Note what the obesity figure is compared against. Not a vague ambition, a target to halt the rise by 2025. The report records it as missed, in the same sentence that gives the number.
The other malnutritionMalnutrition is not only shortage
The indicator moving most clearly in the wrong direction is not obesity. It is anaemia.
The report states it is worseningand that nearly all regions are experiencing widening gaps in addressing it.
Anaemia is a deficiency, not a shortage of calories. It is exactly the kind of thing the word hunger was never built to detect, and exactly the kind of thing a cheap diet of filling food produces.
The rest of the nutrition indicators, child stunting, wasting, overweight, low birthweight, exclusive breastfeeding, show, in the report's own words, “only marginal improvements”, with progress “too slow to meet the targets”.
The youngestThe children's figures
The second figure is the one worth sitting with. Minimally diverse is a low bar by design, and it is cleared by fewer than a third of the children in the age range where diet shapes everything that follows.
The regional picture is genuinely mixed, and it deserves to be reported as such: stunting is declining in Africa and on track to meet the 2030 target in Asia, exclusive breastfeeding rates are improving across all regions where data exists, while child overweight is rising rapidly in Oceania.
The geographyWhere, and how unequally
Moderate or severe food insecurity, by region, in 2025:
- Africa: 56.6%more than half the population.
- Latin America and the Caribbean: 22.9%.
- Asia: 20.3%.
- Northern America and Europe: 8.7%.
A factor of more than six between the first and the last. And inside countries, the report notes two gradients that hold: food insecurity is more prevalent in rural areas than in peri-urban and urban ones, and women remain disproportionately affectedthough the gender gap narrowed slightly in 2025.
That rural finding is worth noticing. The familiar image of a food shortage is an urban neighbourhood with no shop nearby. At world scale, the measurement points the other way: it is rural populations who are most often forced to compromise on what they eat.
The answer givenWhat works, according to the WHO
The temptation, faced with rising obesity, is to hear a story about personal discipline. The WHO Director-General answers it directly in the press release, and his answer is a list of policies.
“While we welcome the clear progress we have made in reducing hunger, a healthy diet still remains unaffordable for one in three people globally. Obesity is rising and progress on maternal and child nutrition is stalling. But we know what works: policies that make healthy food the easy choice, promoting breastfeeding, front-of-pack labelling, taxing unhealthy products, and protecting children from harmful marketing. Healthy diets are not a luxury, they are the foundation of health and must be within everyone's reach.”
Read the first sentence again, because it contains the whole mechanism: progress on hunger, and a healthy diet unaffordable for a third of humanity. Those two facts do not compete. One of them explains the other.
When what fills is cheaper than what nourishes, the hunger figure improves and the nutrition figures do not. That is not a paradox in the data. It is a description of a price.
QuestionsFrequently asked questions
How can obesity rise if hunger is falling?
Because they are not two ends of the same scale. Eating enough calories and eating well are different things. The SOFI 2026 report measures them separately: hunger has fallen for a third year, and adult obesity prevalence rose from 12.1% in 2012 to 16.2% in 2024, contrary to the target of halting its rise by 2025.
How does this relate to the cost of food?
The WHO Director-General puts it in the same sentence: “while we welcome the clear progress we have made in reducing hunger, a healthy diet still remains unaffordable for one in three people globally”. The report puts that cost at 4.28 purchasing power parity dollars per person per day, and at 2.69 billion the number of people who cannot afford it.
What about children?
Two figures from the report, worth putting side by side. 150 million children under five are still stunted. And only 30.8% of children aged 6 to 23 months worldwide eat a minimally diverse diet, fewer than one in three. Stunting is declining in Africa and Asia is on track for the 2030 target, but child overweight is rising rapidly in Oceania.
Is anaemia part of this?
It is worsening, and it is the indicator moving most clearly in the wrong direction. The report states that anaemia among women aged 15 to 49 is getting worse, and that nearly all regions are seeing widening gaps on it. It is a deficiency, not a lack of calories, precisely what the word “hunger” does not capture.
Where is food insecurity highest?
More than half of Africa's population, 56.6%, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025, against 22.9% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 20.3% in Asia, and 8.7% in Northern America and Europe. And within countries, it remains more prevalent in rural areas than in peri-urban and urban ones.
What works, according to the WHO?
Its Director-General gives a list in the press release: “policies that make healthy food the easy choice, promoting breastfeeding, front-of-pack labelling, taxing unhealthy products, and protecting children from harmful marketing”. These are collective measures, not individual advice.
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Sources
About this article. General and educational information. The figures are global and regional estimates from the 2026 edition of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report: they are revised every year and describe no individual. Obesity and anaemia are health matters: only a qualified professional can speak to an individual situation. This text is not nutritional advice.
Spotted an error or an out-of-date figure? Write to us: we will correct it and re-date the article. Our texts are written with the help of artificial intelligence and checked against official sources before publication, but a figure or a definition can change without us catching it. If anything here does not match what an official body tells you, they are right.