Study On The Residents’ Food Consumption Based On Nutritional Goal In Urban China

The food and nutrition of the residents is closely related to the country or region’s economic and social development, which is an important indicator to measure the national living standard and nutrition and healthy status. At the same, the people’s food and nutrition is also an important basis for the development of food production, market circulation, nutrition improvement and other related policy. With the rapid development of economy and society of China, the per capital GDP has exceeded $7000 at present, the residents’ food consumption is accelerating transformation and upgrading and there has been great changes in people’s nutrition and health status, which is especially prominent in urban China. With the accelerating of urbanization, heterogeneity of urban China residents would be further enhanced and the characteristics of the residents including large group, multi-level, fast-changing and strong guidance would be further apparent, which would be more prominent of status and role in the national food and nutrition development. In the new historical conditions, it is more important for realizing the goals of well-off society to further clarify the causes and trends of food consumption transition of urban China residents, and to clarify the gap between the actual status and the ideal goal of the food and nutrition and the developed countries. And policies and measures to accelerate the formulation of China’s urban residents and promote the transformation and upgrading of food consumption and dietary nutrition improvement should be made base on nutritional goals and learning from international experiences. On the basis of consumer economics, econometrics, management and nutriology and other theoretical methods,, urban China residents’ food consumption demand characteristics were analyzed with the almost ideal demand system(AIDS) modified with the demographic characteristics based on analyzing the characteristics of food consumption changes. The typical developed countries residents’ food consumption and nutrition transition characteristics were analyzed in order to provide experience for urban China residents’ food consumption transformation and upgrading. The strategies and paths to promote the urban residents’ food and nutrition development were proposed based on comparing and analyzing the gap in future period, which could be to provide reference for the formulation of China’s residents’ food consumption, food production development and transformation of agricultural structure adjustment and residents nutrition improvement policy. The main conclusions included:The food consumption of urban residents in China has been speeding up transformation and upgrading and the nutritional status of residents were in the continuous improvement. With China’s economic and social development and urban residents income levels contentiously improvement, the expenditure and consuming amount of meat and other animal foods increased rapidly, Westernization trend in food consumption was obvious and the plant foods was still playing an important role in the food consumption of urban residents. The rate and frequency of eating cereal vegetables, edible fruits was maintained in high level but the milk consumption was still at the lower level. Food-away-from-home has become an important part of daily food consumption of urban residents, which was positively related with the income-level but there was some difference among the different income-level groups. The residents’ income-level, price level,food regional development level, food production capacity, the level of market development and the catering industry development level were the important factors affecting the food consumption of urban residents.There are different degrees of difference in food consumption expenditure elasticity and price elasticity between different income-level groups. The grains, oil and fats, eggs and vegetables were the living necessities for the urban residents, the milk and its products was still luxury for the low-income-level households. There were significantly changes in dietary of China’s urban residents and the dietary quality has been improved obviously and the main sources of nutrients structure were more reasonable. But the the ratio of fat energizes is too higher and the cereal food energy supply ratio was significantly lower than the reasonable range. The dietary nutrition was deeply influenced by the incomelevel and eating-out.American and Japanese residents’ food consumption and nutrition has been steadily changing and the normalization of food-away-from-home was the characteristics of food consumption. The food consumption expenditure of residents in the United States and Japan was steadily growth during the period of per capita GDP from $5000 to $10000, and the proportion in the total consumption expenditure declined steadily. At the same time, the animal food consumption expenditure increased as well as the consumption amount showed a significant growth. Well, the expenditure of food-away-from-home increased rapidly and the intake of protein, fat, and calories increase rapidly. When per capita GDP exceeding $15000 in American and Japan, the food consumption expenditure would slowly grow, the Engel coefficient would tend to be stable or stable with a slight decline and the Bannett phenomenon in food consumption was obvious. The external food consumption expenditure was also apparently growth and its normalization was obvious. The main nutrients intake and its source structure tended to be stable, the role of plant food in the diet significantly increased. At the same time, the trumpet characteristic between the plant food consumption increase and the animal reduction was obvious in Americans and the food consumption Westernization trend was clearly in Japan. The guarantee mechanisms to promote food consumption and nutrition improvement were relatively perfect in the two developed countries.There some gap between the reality and the ideal goal in urban residents’ food and nutrition development and some relevant policies and measures should be made.It is expected that the food expenditure of urban residents in China would continue to grow and make further adjustment in 2020, the consumption amount of main food kinds would grow in different degrees,such as the consumption of grains and milk and its products would continuously increase but still below the goals made in the Outline and dietary guide, while the meat would grow and exceed the target consumption. It was showed in China Residents Nutrition and Health Survey that the gap between the reality of main nutrients intake of urban residents and the goal was gradually narrowing but there was still one prominent problem that fat intake was relatively higher.In view of the problems and trends of residents’ food and nutrition in urban China, eight policy suggestions were put forward, such as establishing the new concept of food safety based on nutrition goal, perfecting the income distribution system, carrying forward the traditional diet culture, regulating the behavior of food-away-from-home, improving relevant laws and regulations, strengthening the statistical monitoring system, innovating the inter ministerial joint working mechanism and increasing the intensity of publicity and education and so on. All these measures would speed up promote the urban residents’ food consumption transformation and upgrading and provide references in improving the status of nutrition and health for the government in make measures and strategies.