China’s changing diets improve human health but increase environmental pressures
En palabras de los autores
Understanding how dietary transitions shape environmental and health outcomes across socio-economic and spatial contexts is essential for informing sustainable food system transformations. Here we investigate evolving trade-offs between environmental and health outcomes during urban and rural dietary transitions in China from 1990 to 2021, and examines how these trade-offs vary with regional development levels. Here we show that China’s dietary transition has shifted from initial health and environment synergies to trade-offs, with rising environmental pressures alongside health gains. These trade-offs are more pronounced in regions with a human development index above 0.55. Urban and rural dietary transitions show broadly similar patterns but differ in trade-off progression and associated risks: urban diets are linked to faster health improvements with rising environmental impacts, while rural diets show slower health gains alongside disproportionately high environmental burdens. Scenario analyses indicate that integrating precision agriculture, food waste reduction, and dietary optimization can substantially reduce both health and environmental burdens while narrowing urban and rural inequalities. China’s dietary transitions improve health outcomes but increase environmental pressures, with faster health gains but rising environmental impacts in urban areas and slower health gains yet higher environmental burdens in rural areas, according to analysis combining environmental and health indicators and scenario modeling
Apareció: domingo, 27 de septiembre. Communications Earth & Environment. Revista con revisión por pares.