Bangladesh

Bangladesh is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world due its low-lying and deltaic geography, heavy reliance on agriculture, frequent extreme weather events, population density, urbanization, and poverty rates. While undernutrition remains persistent, the country is also experiencing the nutrition transition, characterized by rapidly increasing intakes of ultra-processed foods high in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat and concomitant increases in obesity and cardiometabolic disease (CMD). Without urgent policy action, climate change will disrupt food systems, increase food and water insecurity, and accelerate CMD risk, with disproportionate impacts for youth, farmers, and the poor. Yet, most research to date has focused on climate’s impacts on agricultural production, with little attention paid to food consumption. Virtually no data exists that combines measures of climate change, dietary intake, and CMD risk, precluding our ability to understand and prevent climate and diet-linked increases in CMD. Moreover, little is understood about the complex pathways through which different climate change exposures influence dietary intake or how these vary for key subpopulations, knowledge that is critical for identifying effective policy interventions. Our

goal is to synthesize and generate evidence on how climate change impacts nutrition and CMD

risk to inform policies for equitable, healthy, and climate-resilient food systems. This includes collecting health and dietary information, linking it with climate exposures to uncover unique pathways, conducting focus groups and interviews with consumers and retailers, and consolidating a policy action toolkit to garner visibility and support for political mobilization around healthy and climate resilient food policy.