Youth voices for healthier food environments
Key insights from Participatory Action Research in East Asia and the Pacific
Highlights
This report amplifies the perspectives of 284 youth from eight countries in East Asia and the Pacific, revealing how unhealthy food environments—dominated by cheap, unhealthy foods—are fueling rising childhood obesity. Through participatory action research, youth documented barriers to healthy eating: limited access, higher costs, and pervasive junk food marketing. Despite knowing what’s healthy, affordability and convenience often drive choices. Using the 4As framework—availability, accessibility, affordability, and appeal—the report analyzes these challenges and presents youth-driven recommendations for change. The findings offer policymakers, educators, and advocates a unique perspective and a clear call for urgent, youth-led action.
Calls to Action
- Make healthy food affordable and accessible: Subsidize nutritious options and ensure schools and communities offer healthy choices.
- Regulate unhealthy food marketing: Enforce stronger controls on advertising targeting children and adolescents.
- Preserve traditional and local food cultures: Promote heritage recipes and local farming, reconnecting youth with culturally significant foods.
- Include youth in policy decisions: Create platforms for young people to actively shape and monitor food environment reforms.
The findings of this project directly supports UNICEF country offices’ advocacy efforts to improve food environments, providing evidence and youth perspectives that strengthen policy dialogue and drive meaningful change at national and local levels.
