Yang Minda, Amar Nimra, Zhao Longqiang, Pan Cong
College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
Front Nutr. 2025 Jun 4;12:1608024. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1608024. eCollection 2025.
A healthy diet is essential for public health and plays a central role in sustainable food systems. This paper investigates the impact of family composition and income on dietary health within rural households in China, analyzing how these factors correlate with dietary diversity and quality. Utilizing a 3-day food consumption record data across three provinces, we apply ordinary least squares regression to explore the relationships with three key dietary health indicators: the Entropy Index of dietary diversity (E), the Chinese Food Pagoda Score (CFPS), and the Chinese Healthy Eating Index (CHEI). Our findings indicate that higher household income significantly improves all measures of dietary health, affirming the critical role of economic factors in achieving a nutritious diet. In contrast, a higher proportion of elderly individuals within households is associated with poorer dietary outcomes, suggesting specific challenges in meeting the nutritional needs of aging populations. These findings offer insights into how demographic and income factors shape dietary practices, contributing to discussions on sustainable food consumption in developing regions. This research contributes to the understanding of dietary health dynamics in rural China and supports broader efforts to attain sustainable development goals related to health and wellbeing.
健康饮食对公众健康至关重要，在可持续粮食系统中发挥着核心作用。本文研究了家庭构成和收入对中国农村家庭饮食健康的影响，分析了这些因素与饮食多样性和质量的相关性。利用三个省份的三日食物消费记录数据，我们应用普通最小二乘法回归来探讨与三个关键饮食健康指标的关系：饮食多样性熵指数（E）、中国食物宝塔得分（CFPS）和中国健康饮食指数（CHEI）。我们的研究结果表明，家庭收入增加显著改善了所有饮食健康指标，证实了经济因素在实现营养饮食方面的关键作用。相比之下，家庭中老年人比例较高与较差的饮食结果相关，这表明在满足老年人口营养需求方面存在特定挑战。这些发现为人口和收入因素如何塑造饮食习惯提供了见解，有助于发展中地区关于可持续食物消费的讨论。本研究有助于理解中国农村的饮食健康动态，并支持为实现与健康和福祉相关的可持续发展目标所做的更广泛努力。
