Children in India’s poorest and lower-caste communities are far more likely to be stunted from undernutrition, while in the UK, poorer children and those from some ethnic-minority groups face sharply higher obesity rates. This project builds a network of experts to compare how food-system policies in the two countries drive these opposite but equally damaging health inequalities. The problem is that current policies in both nations often fail to reach the groups that need them most. India’s Public Distribution System subsidises homegrown unprocessed food, yet undernutrition persists among the poorest. The UK runs public-health campaigns promoting healthier diets, yet obesity remains concentrated in disadvantaged communities. Neither country systematically learns from the other’s successes and failures. If the network succeeds, it will identify concrete policy swaps that could work in each context—for example, India adopting UK-style health campaigns, or the UK learning from India’s subsidies for unprocessed staples. The goal is to inform future large-scale research and, ultimately, more effective food policies that reduce diet-related diseases and improve nutrition for children and families in both countries.
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Our project will establish a network of experts to examine how food-system policies in India and the UK influence dietary, nutrition, and health inequalities. In both countries, there are significant differences in nutrition and health outcomes amongst different demographic and socio-economic groups. In India, many children are undernourished, with rates of stunting (children too short for age) much higher amongst poorer and lower-caste communities. In contrast, the UK faces greater challenges with overnutrition, with poorer children and children from some ethnic-minority groups exhibiting significantly higher rates of obesity than the average. Our network will facilitate fieldwork and organise two workshops, bringing together academic researchers, policymakers, and civil-society representatives. These workshops will explore how food-system policies in the UK and India influence their populations' dietary, nutrition, and health inequalities and identify opportunities for mutual learning. Some possibilities include India taking inspiration from the UK in organising public-health campaigns promoting healthier diets or India motivating the UK with its subsidies of homegrown unprocessed food as part of the Public Distribution System. This research, which we aim to expand through future large grant applications, has the potential to inform more effective food policies in both India and the UK. Such policies could promote healthier diets and more effectively reduce health disparities. The broader impacts of this work could lead to improved nutrition for children and families, better public health outcomes, and more equitable access to healthy food, ultimately helping to lower the societal burden of diet-related diseases.
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