Synthesis and implications: China's nutrition transition in the context of changes across other low‐ and middle‐income countries

Abstract

The China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) is important for its insights into current and future diet, physical activity, and obesity-related changes in China and for understanding underlying processes common across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). While China modernized later than Latin American countries, many changes seen in China echo those in Latin America and in other LMICs. In general changes in physical activity and diet behaviors in China have occurred at a faster pace relative to other LMICs. Modernization of the overall Chinese food system has lagged behind most other LMICs, yet the now-rapid changes in the Chinese food system are similar to what has been seen in other LMICs. Further, there is variation in these changes across social and geographic space. The incidence of obesity and noncommunicable diseases has increased as the major health burden has shifted toward the poor. This paper examines changes in China and addresses the literature and issues that link these changes with those in other LMICs. In many ways the detailed 20-year CHNS, with nine repeated measures, provides a remarkable window through which to understand nutrition-related changes in other LMICs.

Association of neighbourhood food availability with the consumption of processed and ultra-processed food products by children in a city of Brazil: a multilevel analysis

“…Although the existence of supermarkets in the neighbourhood has been positively associated with fruit and vegetable availability and consumption in high-and middleincome countries (78,(82)(83)(84)(85) , the contribution that these food stores make to the availability of RCP cannot be ignored. The rapid increase and dominance of supermarkets throughout developed areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia in the last few decades has contributed, at least in part, to the increased availability of processed food products at low cost (21,(86)(87)(88) and the subsequent shift in consumption from staple and unprocessed foods to energy-dense and ultra-processed foods (21,26,89) . Interventions should focus on increasing the proportion of healthier foods compared with unhealthier foods within supermarkets to facilitate healthier food consumption patterns (90,91) .…”

Do older Chinese people’s diets meet the Chinese Food Pagoda guidelines? Results from the China Health and Nutrition Survey 2009

“…For instance, consumption of polyunsaturated fat instead of saturated fat has been shown to lower the risk of CVD (42) . Therefore the CFP needs to be improved to provide more detailed food group categories, especially given that China is experiencing a rapid acceleration of nutritional and epidemiological transitions, with an increasing prevalence of NCD (43) . The present study explored factors that may impact on adherence to the CFPS.…”

Spatiotemporal variation in diabetes mortality in China: multilevel evidence from 2006 and 2012

“…Concurrent to the accelerating rate of urbanization in the past two decades, China has (and continues to) experience epidemiological transition [9][10][11]. The burden of disease attributable to individual behaviors is steadily rising and inequitably [8,12].…”