The state of food security and nutrition in Myanmar, 2021-2025: Findings from nine rounds of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey
Persistent Hunger: Extreme hunger continued to affect nearly 3.5 percent of households in late 2025. Poor Adult Diet Quality: Over a quarter of adults (27.1 percent) lack adequate dietary diversity. Women’s diet quality has worsened faster than men’s over the past three years. Deteriorating diets of young children: Over 36.5 percent of 6-23 months and 24.3 percent of 6-59 months old children are without an adequately diverse diet, significantly higher than in previous years. Multiple Factors Affecting Risk & Resilience: Low assets, conflict, and high food prices drive insecurity; remittances reduce food-related risks.
This working paper explores the state of food security and nutrition in Myanmar using nine rounds of nationally representative household panel data collected from December 2021 to October 2025. Overall, the state of food security and nutrition has deteriorated in Myanmar from 2021-2025.
Nearly 3.5 percent of households were in moderate to severe hunger in July-October 2025, with low asset households disproportionately affected. Households with a low Food Consumption Score increased from 9.4 percent in December 2021-February 2022 to 14.2 percent in August-November 2023 and remained high at 16.2 percent in July-October 2025.
Inadequate diet diversity among adults rose from 20.5 percent to 27.1 percent between December 2021-February 2022 and July-October 2025. Women saw a faster decline in diet quality during this time (8.7 percentage points increase in poor diet quality compared to 3.9 percentage points for men). Decreases in diet quality among adults were driven by lower consumption of animal sourced food.
In the latest round of survey, children with poor diet quality increased compared to previous rounds – currently in 2025, 36.5 percent of 6-23 months and 24.3 percent of 6-59 months children are without an adequately diverse diet compared to 30.7 percent and 21.3 percent, respectively, in 2024. Similarly, 42.9 percent of children aged 6-23 months in Myanmar do not meet the Minimum Acceptable Diet (MAD), a composite indicator of meal frequency and dietary diversity, indicating widespread inadequacy in infant and young child feeding.
Regression analysis reveals low income and limited assets to be important risk factors for food security and adequate diet quality. Wage workers and low wage communities were particularly vulnerable. Rising food prices, conflict and physical insecurity also increase the likelihood of poor diet quality. Receiving remittances was a source of resilience; remittance-receiving households were less likely to experience hunger or poor dietary diversity at the household, adult, and child level.
To avert a full-blown nutrition crisis in Myanmar, effective multisectoral steps are required to protect nutritionally vulnerable populations. Expanded implementation of nutrition- and gender-sensitive social protection programs, including maternal and child cash transfers, particularly to vulnerable groups, is needed. Further, given the importance of remittances as an effective coping mechanism, supporting migration and the flow of remittances would help to improve the welfare of the Myanmar population.
Authors
Tauseef, Salauddin; Linn, Khin Mar; Oo, Theingi; van Asselt, Joanna
Citation
Tauseef, Salauddin; Linn, Khin Mar; Oo, Theingi; and van Asselt, Joanna. 2026. The state of food security and nutrition in Myanmar, 2021-2025: Findings from nine rounds of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey. Myanmar SSP Working Paper 76. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/182086
Keywords
Asia; South-eastern Asia; Food Security; Nutrition; Hunger; Households; Dietary Diversity; Food Consumption Statistics; Regression Analysis
