The top 10 countries with the best and worst diets in the world

A study confirmed that African countries have some of the best diets in the world.

18:09 20 February 2015

A recent study has revealed the top 10 countries with the best and worst diets in the world. Chad, Mali, and Cameroon were voted as the healthiest while Armenia, Hungary, and Belgium are the top three countries with worst diets.

The research looked at the diets of almost 4.5million adults across 187 countries. It found that the intake of unhealthy food such as processed meat and sweetened drinks have significantly increased overall.

Between 1990 and 2010, high-income nations attempted to reduce their consumption of unhealthy food. However, people living in the wealthiest regions have some of the poorest quality diets in the world. These include people living in Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and United States.
 
Researcher Dariush Mozaffarian said: "There is a particularly urgent need to focus on improving diet quality among poorer populations. If we do nothing, undernutrition will be rapidly eclipsed by obesity and non-communicable diseases, as is already been seen in India, China, and other middle income countries."

Dr Fumiaki Imamura, from the University of Cambridge said: "By 2020, projections indicate that non-communicable diseases will account for 75 per cent of all deaths. Improving diet has a crucial role to play in reducing this burden.

"Our findings have implications for governments and international bodies worldwide. The distinct dietary trends based on healthy and unhealthy foods, we highlight, indicate the need to understand different, multiple causes of these trends, such as agricultural, food industry, and health policy. Policy actions in multiple domains are essential to help people achieve optimal diets to control the obesity epidemic and reduce non-communicable diseases in all regions of the world."

Countries with the healthiest diets:

1. Chad
2. Mali
3. Cameroon
4. Guyana
5. Tunisia
6. Sierra Leone
7. Laos
8. Nigeria
9. Guatemala
10. French Guiana

Countries with the unhealthiest diets:

1. Armenia
2. Hungary
3. Belgium
4. USA
5. Russia
6. Iceland
7. Latvia
8. Brazil
9. Colombia
10. Australia