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Relative prices of healthy/unhealthy foods have been implicated in the obesity epidemic, but never extensively quantified across countries or empirically linked to undernutrition.

This study compared relative caloric prices (RCPs) for different food categories across 176 countries and ascertained their associations with dietary indicators and nutrition outcomes.

We converted prices for 657 standardized food products from the 2011 International Comparison Program into caloric prices using USDA Food Composition tables. We classified products into 21 specific food groups. We constructed RCPs as the ratio of the 3 cheapest products in each food group, relative to the weighted cost of a basket of starchy staples. We analyzed RCP differences across World Bank income levels and regions and used cross-country regressions to explore associations with Demographic Health Survey dietary …