Asia In Brief When food delivery “superapps” started operations in Indonesia, users started putting on weight – and that’s not an entirely ba

When food delivery apps reached Indonesia, everyone put on weight

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2025-01-20 11:30:08

Asia In Brief When food delivery “superapps” started operations in Indonesia, users started putting on weight – and that’s not an entirely bad thing.

Titled “Impact of Super Apps on the Nutrition Transition in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Evidence from Indonesia”, the paper considers health data from Indonesia covering the years 2015 to 2018 – a time that coincides with widespread the widespread adoption of “superapps” Grab and Gojek.

The authors found that the debut of food delivery apps saw an increase in body mass index (BMI) scores, “particularly among individuals who are already overweight and obese”. Those increases were “more pronounced in cities … and among individuals with employment, above median income, and education beyond primary school.” The wealthy, the paper suggests, had money to spend on prepared food and bought more of it.

The authors also found evidence of a reduction in numbers of underweight people, and an increase in consumption of fruit and meat.