Food environments and behavioral drivers of food choice in South Asia

To improve diets, policy interventions are needed across the four key dimensions of the food environment: accessibility, affordability, availability, and desirability. • The distinction between rural and urban food sectors is diminishing, with increased availability of packaged foods from multinational companies playing a significant role in this shift. • Establishing an effective regulatory framework for food packaging, labeling, and marketing is essential to creating healthier food environments and shaping consumer perceptions of food products and their desirability. • There is increasing support for taxing food products that are high in unhealthy fats, salt, and sugar, such as sugar-sweetened beverages, chips, biscuits, and so on. • Low consumption of fruits and vegetables, driven by both supply- and demand-side constraints, poses a significant challenge to achieving healthy diets in South Asia. • Exposure to advertising and digital food environment reach are high among high-income groups, yet knowledge about the promotion and reach of healthy diet information is limited. • The proliferation of digital food environments also poses regulatory challenges, as marketing targeted at wealthier households creates a ripple effect across lower income groups who emulate these behaviors.