The income in bodies

Is there a link between the body and income? Can a person’s appearance give us an idea of their social status? Looking at paintings and sculptures from the past, we see an ideal of opulent bodies that reflected the wealth of those who could afford to eat abundantly, while most people suffered from hunger, could afford only a few foods, and appeared emaciated. Even skin tone denoted social status: tanned people were those who worked outdoors (farmers, bricklayers, fishermen), not the nobles who spent their days idling indoors or the bourgeois who worked inside their shops. Until the early 20th century, European and American women protected their skin from the sun in summer with parasols, hats, and gloves, precisely to avoid tanning and maintain an affluent appearance.

More or less after World War II, tanned skin changed meaning: sun exposure became a sign of having time and money for vacations. Then, marketing and 1980s consumerism turned tanning into yet another must-have status symbol, until medicine reminded us of the harmful effects of sun exposure on our skin.

The image of a high-income body has also changed: today, a fat body often evokes, among other things (!), inadequate nutrition, perhaps junk food. If we compare the prices of fresh/healthy foods with processed foods high in sugar and fat, it becomes clear that those with lower incomes are more likely to consume the latter than wealthier individuals.

The food sector, particularly retail food sales, is growing rapidly, especially in emerging markets where processed foods are increasingly available and accessible. How is it possible that in some countries, beer or sugary/soft drinks cost the same or less than water? What responsibility do major food & beverage (F&B) brands have when they price healthier food lines higher than high-calorie, high-fat products?

The Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI) is a global nonprofit organization that promotes the transformation of the F&B market to make healthier food products more available and accessible, aiming for at least half of F&B company sales to contribute to healthy and sustainable diets by 2030. ATNI coordinates engagement initiatives in which investors ask leading global F&B companies to recognize their role in shaping food choices, improve the nutritional quality of their products, adopt responsible business strategies (especially for products aimed at children), improve pricing of healthier products, and use effective labeling to help consumers make healthier choices.

In early 2025, ATNI launched an engagement program based on the 2024 Global Access to Nutrition Index, which evaluated the performance of the 30 leading global F&B companies. Compared to the previous analysis (2021), sales from healthier products increased from 27% to 34%, and 30% of companies generated at least 50% of sales from such products. However, the analysis shows that the road to accessible, healthy diets is still long: the overall healthiness of food products in low- and middle-income countries scored much lower than in high-income countries; only 30% of companies adopted strategies to make healthier products affordable to low-income consumers, and in most cases, this applied to a limited range of products and markets.

Organizations like ATNI need support so that a food market more aware of its role and more responsible in nourishing bodies can contribute to reducing the impacts of income inequality.