Cost of healthy diet reached N858 per day in January —NBS

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has reported that the National Average Cost of a Healthy Diet (CoHD) per adult per day was N858 in January 2024.

This was disclosed by the NBS in its CoHD report for January 2024 released in Abuja on Saturday.

The NBS pointed out that the CoHD was the least expensive combination of locally available items that met globally consistent food-based dietary guidelines, adding that it was used as a measure of physical and economic access to healthy diets.

“This is a lower bound (or floor) of the cost per adult per day excluding the cost of transportation and meal preparation,” the NBS stated.

According to the NBS, to compute the CoHD indicator, the data on retail food prices, food composition data and healthy diet standard are required.

The NBS report stated that in January 2024, the average CoHD was highest in the South-West at N1,045 per adult per day, followed by the South-East at N986 per day.

The bureau said the lowest average CoHD was recorded in the North-West at N683 per adult per day.

It went on to report that at the state level, Osun, Ekiti and Ondo recorded the highest CoHD at N1,090, N1,087 and N1,063, respectively.

The NBS report said Katsina and Niger states recorded the lowest cost at N629, followed by Kano and Jigawa at N649 and N676, respectively.

The NBS report identified animal-source foods as the most expensive food group recommendation to meet in January 2024, accounting for 38 percent of the total CoHD to provide 13 percent of the total calories.

The report read, “Fruits and vegetables are the most expensive food groups in terms of price per calorie.

“They accounted for 12 percent and 14 percent, respectively of the total CoHD while providing only seven percent and five percent of total calories in the healthy diet basket.

“Legumes, nuts and seeds were the least-expensive food group on average, at six per cent of the total cost.”

The NBS said in recent months, the CoHD had risen faster than general inflation and food inflation.

The report said, “However, the CoHD and the food Consumer Price Index (CPI) are not directly comparable.

“The CoHD includes fewer items and is measured in Naira per day, while the food CPI is a weighted index.”

The CoHD report, which was unveiled on January 31 in Abuja, was produced by the NBS in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Federal Ministries of Budget and Economic Planning; Health and Social Welfare and Agriculture and Food Security.

It was technically supported by the Food Prices for Nutrition project, led by the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, the United States (U.S.).