Over 39% of population not consuming adequate diet

The food security assessment carried out by the FAO and WFP revealed that approximately 8.7 million of Sri Lankans (39.1 percent) are not consuming an adequate diet. 

According to the two UN agencies, this represents a dramatic deterioration compared to the third quarter of 2021, when a survey conducted by the Medical Research Institute estimated only 3.4 percent of the households had inadequate food consumption.  

In June 2022, meals predominantly consisted of rice, vegetables, oil and sugar, while consumption of fish, an important source of protein in the Sri Lankan diet, averaged just 0.8 days per week.

“The nutritional content of diets consumed by households was poor. For the poorest households, diets were particularly lacking protein and iron-rich foods: 12.9 percent and 69.9 percent of the households in the lowest expenditure quintile had not consumed any protein or iron-containing foods in the past seven days (when the survey was carried out,” the report noted. 

The female-headed households, small households (with one to two members) and households receiving benefits from the Samurdhi programme were strongly associated with having inadequate food consumption during the week prior to the survey.