Empty calories

Pschologist Abraham Maslow proposed that human motivation is driven by a hierarchy of needs. The first level — physiological needs — indicates basic rights including food, shelter and clothing. While the second level — safety — indicates the need for nutritious food and a healthy body. Such is the importance of nutrition that it surpasses most things in life. According to a recent analysis led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Pakistan may be producing enough calories to sustain level one, but it is not adequately catering to the need for healthy, nutritious and diverse food as required by level two.

Nutrition always ties both food availability and food affordability together. On one hand, the country is producing caloric food that is insufficient in nutrition and diversity. And on the other, nutritious staple foods that are available have been disparately rising in prices for over half a decade.

According to a 2025 Unicef report titled ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’, food price inflation in Pakistan substantially outpaced general inflation. Coupled with the exorbitant prices of meat and poultry and the volatile prices of fruits and vegetables owing to whatever political crisis the country is steeped in, nutritious food is not just inadequate but inaccessible as well.
Unhealthy habits have gone so far as to indicate that rural households consume far more sugar — once a marker of disposable income and miscellaneous spendings — than urban households due to their affordability and ease of access.

There are several steps that the government can now take to curb this undesirable trend, including but not limited to higher taxes on sugar items and a relaxation in prices of fruits and vegetables. Nutrition education must also exceed curriculums and reach people in rural regions so that they are better equipped to take healthier, informed decisions.