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The nutrition transition transforms food systems globally and shapes public health and environmental change. Here we provide a global forward-looking assessment of a continued nutrition transition and its interlinked symptoms in respect to food consumption. These symptoms range from underweight and unbalanced diets to obesity, food waste and environmental pressure. We find that by 2050, 45% (39-52%) of the world population will be overweight and 16% (13-20%) obese, compared to 29% and 9% in 2010 respectively. The prevalence of underweight approximately halves but absolute numbers stagnate at 0.4-0.7 billion. Aligned, dietary composition shifts towards animal-source foods and empty calories, while the consumption of vegetables, fruits and nuts increases insufficiently. Population growth, ageing, increasing body mass and more wasteful consumption patterns are jointly pushing global food demand from 30 to 45 (43-47) Exajoules. Our comprehensive open dataset and model provides the interfaces necessary for integrated studies of global health, food systems, and environmental change. Achieving zero hunger, healthy diets, and a food demand compatible with environmental boundaries necessitates a coordinated redirection of the nutrition transition. Reducing household waste, animal-source foods, and overweight could synergistically address multiple symptoms at once, while eliminating underweight would not substantially increase food demand.

Climate change adaptation strategies play a crucial role in smallholder farm households' food security and sustainability, particularly under climate change extremes. This study, therefore, examines the role of climate change extremes and smallholder farmers' adaptation strategies in preventing food insecurity in Nepal. Data was collected in 2021 from 400 smallholder households in three agro-ecological zones, namely Mountains, Hill, and Terai. Around 12 % of households were found to be food insecure based on food consumption scores. However, another food security indicator reduced coping strategy index, showing that about 22 % of the households used different short-term strategies to cope with food insecurity. Results from the ordered logit models show that exposure to drought (climate change extremes) adversely impacts the food security status of the households in each study area. Conversely, adopting various adaptation strategies, such as irrigation, agroforestry, and temporary migration, positively impact household food security. In addition, the findings highlight the importance of household head education, market, credit, and information access in enhancing the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers to cope with food insecurity. As a recommendation, adaptation strategies to food insecurity should be carefully tailored to each agro-ecological zone's specific socio-economic and institutional characteristics. [Display omitted] • Adaptation to climate change makes a positive contribution to food security. • Exposure to drought negatively impacts food security. • Adaptation strategies to address food insecurity need to be agroecological based. • Credit enables farmers to invest in agriculture to improve food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most South Asian countries have challenges in ensuring water, energy, and food (WEF) security, which are often interacting positively or negatively. To address these challenges, the nexus approach provides a framework to identify the interactions of the WEF sectors as an integrated system. However, most nexus studies only qualitatively discuss the interactions between these sectors. This study conducts a systematic analysis of the WEF security nexus in South Asia by using open data sources at the country scale. We analyze interactions between the WEF sectors statistically, defining positive and negative correlations between the WEF security indicators as synergies and trade-offs, respectively. By creating networks of the synergies and trade-offs, we further identify most positively and negatively influencing indicators in the WEF security nexus. We observe a larger share of trade-offs than synergies within the water and energy sectors and a larger share of synergies than trade-offs among the WEF sectors for South Asia. However, these observations vary across the South Asian countries. Our analysis highlights that strategies on promoting sustainable energy and discouraging fossil fuel use could have overall positive effects on the WEF security nexus in the countries. This study provides evidence for considering the WEF security nexus as an integrated system rather than just a combination of three different sectors or securities. Unlabelled Image • We quantitatively address the challenge in operating the WEF security nexus concept. • South Asia has more trade-offs than synergies within the water and energy sectors. • Among the WEF sectors, the share of synergies is larger than trade-offs. • Sustainable and clean energy have overall positive effects on the WEF security nexus. • The WEF security nexus is an integrated system, not just a combination of the sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]