Changing Chinese Diets to Achieve a Win–Win Solution for Health and the Environment

• Published date: 01 November 2021
• Author: Fangfang Sheng,Jingjing Wang,Kevin Z. Chen,Shenggen Fan,Haixiu Gao
• Date: 01 November 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12393

©2021 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

China & World Economy / 34–52, Vol. 29, No. 6, 2021

34

*Fangfang Sheng, PhD Candidate, Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, Chinese Academy of

Agricultural Sciences, China. Email: shengfangfang2018@126.com; Jingjing Wang, Assistant Professor, Academy

of Global Food Economics and Policy, China Agricultural University, China. Email: jwang010@cau.edu.cn;

Kevin Z. Chen, Professor, China Academy for Rural Development, Zhejiang University, China; International

Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA. Email: kzchen@zju.edu.cn; Shenggen Fan, Dean of Academy of

Global Food Economics and Policy, and Chair Professor, China Agricultural University, China. Email: s.fan@cau.

edu.cn; Haixiu Gao (corresponding author), Postdoctoral Researcher, Academy of Global Food Economics and

Policy, China Agricultural University, China. Email: haixiugao@cau.edu.cn. The authors acknowledge research

support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72061147002), Food and Land Use Coalition

(No. 2020-SKY-523031-0024), and Zhejiang University–IFPRI Center for International Development Studies.

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Solution for Health and the Environment

Fangfang Sheng, Jingjing Wang, Kevin Z. Chen, Shenggen Fan, Haixiu Gao*

Abstract

Diets are key determinants of nutrition and health and play a significant role in the

environment. In this article, we aim to (i) describe dietary transitions and health in China

and the consequent environmental challenges; (ii) identify differences between current

Chinese diets and healthy reference diets; (iii) conduct a systematic review assessing the

health impacts of four reference diets on the Chinese population, and (iv) simulate changes

in greenhouse gas emissions under different diet scenarios. The results show differences

between the Chinese diets and reference diets, with the current Chinese diet including

mainly grains (especially refined rice), excessive meat consumption, and insufficient

consumption of fruit and milk. If all Chinese consumers adopt one of the healthy reference

diets all the time, the incidence of diet-related chronic disease and mortality would be

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146–202 million tons (18–25 percent) compared with the projected emissions level in 2030.

Keywords: dietary transition, healthy diets, greenhouse gas emissions, nutrition and health

JEL codes: I12, I18, Q51

I. Introduction

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, about three billion people throughout the world

could not afford a healthy diet (FAO et al., 2020). The pandemic further revealed the

fragil ity of fo od system s and their inability to support healthy diets for the poor (International

© 2021 The Authors. China & World Economy published by John Wiley & Sons Australia,

Ltd on behalf of Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License,

which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

©2021 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Changing Chinese Diets for Health and the Environment 35

Food Policy Research Institute, 2021). This has devastating consequences for health

and nutrition in low-income and middle-income countries, especially for women of

reproductive age and young children (Headey and Ruel, 2020). A healthy diet supports

the immune system and is particularly important during the pandemic to help reduce

the risk and severity of illness (Calder, 2020). In rethinking food systems for the post-

pandemic world, we should not just simply recover what we had before the pandemic,

as those food systems were not sustainable and many people did not have access to

healthy diets. We must use the pandemic as an opportunity to build better systems.

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world’s population and a large greenhouse gas emitter (Cai et al., 2021), it is imperative

to promote dietary changes for a win–win situation for health and the environment there.

In recent decades, China has made remarkable achievements in reducing hunger

and malnutrition. With the rapid development of the Chinese economy, absolute

poverty was eliminated in 2020, and the prevalence of undernourishment dropped

from 24 percent in the 1990s to 2.5 percent in 2019 (Huang and Xu, 2019; Food and

Agriculture Organization of the United Nations et al., 2020). Chinese diets have also

undergone remarkable changes. There has been a significant improvement in diet

diversity, but the pattern has become Westernized. The consumption of meat, especially

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These dietary changes have brought new challenges – for example, the rapid growth of

overweight and obesity and the increasing prevalence of diet-related chronic diseases.

In China, more than 50 percent of adults are overweight or obese, and the overweight

and obesity rates of children (<6 years) and adolescents (6–17 years) have reached

10.4 percent and 19.0 percent, respectively (National Health Commission, 2020).

Concurrently, the increase in meat consumption has increased greenhouse gas (GHG)

emissions. According to the databases of the Food and Agriculture Organization of

the United Nations (FAO), GHG emissions from agricultural activity in China were

720 million tons in 2017, increasing by 20 percent from 1990.

Numerous studies have investigated the potential environmental and health impacts

of changing dietary behaviors. Studies in developed countries suggest that a transition

to healthy diets could improve public health and reduce environmental footprints

(Westhoek et al., 2014). In developing countries, especially those still suffering from

the double burden of malnutrition (where undernutrition, overweight and obesity are

simultaneously prevalent), the environmental impact of dietary changes may be less

obvious (Springmann et al., 2018a; Aleksandrowicz et al., 2019). Previous studies

have investigated the ongoing dietary transition in China and highlighted the excessive

consumption of meat, fruit, and dairy products. He et al. (2018) argued that the increased

© 2021 The Authors. China & World Economy published by John Wiley & Sons Australia,

Ltd on behalf of Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License,

which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.