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Abstract

This paper uses an optimisation model to quantify the necessary food consumption adjustments for Chinese diets to fulfil the requirements in the health‐based Chinese Dietary Guidelines (CDG) or WHO dietary guidelines. We further aim to determine whether adopting these guidelines could lead to lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) while maintaining diet affordability. Modelling outcomes under the CDG and WHO scenarios differ significantly from nutritional, GHGE and diet affordability perspectives: relative to observed eating patterns, diets following the WHO guidelines are equally emissions intensive, while diets consistent with the CDG recommendations are less sustainable. Further optimisations imposing significant reductions in GHGE indicate important environmental and nutritional co‐benefits can be achieved through the WHO guidelines, while maintaining diet affordability. In the WHO scenario, the maximum diet‐related GHGE reduction policymakers could aim for is 30%, since above this threshold, recommended diets would deviate considerably from observed patterns. The CDG model with a 20% emissions reduction does not converge for 64% of the initial data set, casting doubt on the affordability and compatibility of the CDG with China's decarbonisation goal. We recommend that future versions of the CDG be reformulated to closer align with WHO advice and explicitly include environmental considerations.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	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. © 2025 The Author(s). Nutrition Bulletin published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Nutrition Foundation.
Publisher Keywords:	diet, dietary guidelines, environmental impact, foods, greenhouse gas emissions, People's Republic of China
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DS Asia G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Healthcare Services Research & Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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