Roles of Food Price and Dietary Knowledge in Improving Diet Quality in China

China has been experiencing a rapid increase in the prevalence of overweight/obesity after 1990, and China now has the largest number of overweight people in the world. The increasing overweight/obesity will cause a substantial increase in diet-related chronic diseases and economic and social costs. Thus, it is critical to prevent and mitigate overweight/obesity in China. As potential policy channels, this paper focuses on the roles of food price and dietary knowledge in leading people to healthier diet. The paper finds that overweight people tend to be more responsive to food price and income changes, and that the undesirable impacts of increasing pork and oil prices on diet quality are smaller among people with higher dietary knowledge. The findings imply that food price policy can be more effective among overweight people and that dietary education may mitigate the undesirable effects of increasing pork and oil prices on diet quality in China. The paper also demonstrates the importance of taking into account substitutions across food groups when we evaluate the impact of food price policy on diet quality