Kanika Agarwal^1,, Ravinder Chadha¹, Nikhil Tandon²

This review aims to examine evidence on whether dietary costs explain variations in diet quality; and that diet cost is an indicia of risk of non communicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes etc. A thorough review of scientific literature available on PubMed and Google Scholar on diet cost and diet quality was undertaken. Research shows that the energy dense-nutrient poor diets are cheaper and have a lower diet quality compared to nutrition rich diets. One reason behind this may be that since energy dense foods are dry and have a stable shelf life and give more energy per unit cost while foods with lower energy density like fruits and vegetables are perishable. Education is shown to be related to high diet quality in some studies. Few studies have shown that the diet cost and body mass index as well as waist circumference are inversely related; however no association was seen between diet cost and risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

diet cost, energy density, energy cost, diet quality, non-communicable disease