Prof. Anna Lartey, a Professor of Nutrition at the University of Ghana, has revealed that 65% of adults in Ghana are unable to afford a healthy diet, raising serious concerns about food security, rising prices, and worsening nutritional outcomes nationwide.
She explained that the high cost of nutrient-rich foods—including fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, and dairy products—continues to push many households toward cheaper, calorie-dense alternatives that offer limited nutritional value.
According to her, this trend risks increasing cases of malnutrition, diet-related diseases, and reduced productivity, accounting for the reason adults in Ghana cannot afford nutritious meals.
Prof. Lartey attributed the affordability crisis to several factors, including inflation, currency instability, high transportation costs, and significant post-harvest losses.
In both urban and rural communities, the prices of essential nutritious foods have risen far faster than incomes, making healthy eating increasingly unattainable for millions of Ghanaians.
She made these remarks at a sensitisation workshop in Accra titled “Beyond the Dialogues: Tracking Ghana’s Commitments to Transform Its Food Systems.” The event was organised by the University of Ghana School of Public Health, with support from the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), as part of a project to monitor the country’s food system transformation commitments adopted in 2021.
Prof. Lartey noted that healthy foods are often significantly more expensive than highly processed “junk” foods, pushing many people toward cheaper, less nutritious options.
She pointed out that fruits and vegetables typically cost far more than sugar-sweetened beverages and fast foods, which are widely available on nearly every street corner.
She cautioned that these poor dietary habits carry severe consequences, citing global data showing that up to 15 million deaths could be prevented annually if societies adopted healthier diets.
Prof. Lartey called for a transformational shift in Ghana’s food system, emphasising that the nation has already made several commitments to improve food and nutrition outcomes.
“Ghana has made several commitments to reform its food system to ensure it supports better health outcomes,” she said.
“This project is saying that we have had the dialogues, we have talked — now it is time for action. What steps are we putting in place to ensure that the commitments we made are being achieved?”
During the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, more than 160 UN Member States and regional blocs pledged to transform their food systems by 2030 to ensure sustainable and healthy diets for all.
At the summit, Ghana committed to meeting 17 food system transformation targets by 2025. These include increasing the rate of early initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth from 52% in 2017 to 80%, and raising the rate of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months from 42.9% in 2017 to 62%.
