Title 1: Do Improvements of Living Standards Lead to Growth of Obesity?—Evidence from Chinese Adults

Speaker: Dr. Zhao Yinyu 

Time: 14:30-15:30pm, Nov. 24, 2017 (Friday) 

Venue: Meeting Room C304, The Building of Economics, Management and Landscape Architecture

Introduction: Nearly 20 years, Chinese has been becoming fatter immediately, and will be more severely in the foreseeable future. Overweight and obesity has become the main risk factors that resulting in chronic diseases and cancer. Thus, the direct medical costs of preventing, diagnosing and treating associated chronic diseases due to rising prevalence of overweight and obesity increases every year. Governments are facing severe public health problems and great health care funding pressures. Moreover, chronic diseases due to obesity not only affects the quality of life of individuals, but also pose a huge threat on the overall efficiency of social labor. Overweight and obesity epidemic has made it become an urgent social and economic problem to be solved. This report mainly includes: First, analyzing trends of overweight and obesity in urban China with overweight rate, obesity rate and BMI; Second, the evolution of the dietary structure and nutritional intake structure of adult residents in China; Third, the introduction of the research results. 

Profile: Zhao Yinyu, born in November 1989 in Shaanxi Province. She graduated from College of Economics and Management of China Agricultural University in December 2016, and joined the Department of Quantitative Economics of College of Economics and Management, Northwest A & F University in 2017. Currently, she engages in research about nutrition and health, poverty and other aspects of research, hosts a Funding for initial scientific research from Northwest A & F University, participated in a number of national, provincial and ministerial level projects. In the past five years, several papers have been published in publications such as 《Economics》(Quarterly) and 《China's Rural Economy》.

Title 2: Complementary livelihood capital as a means to enhance adaptive capacity: A case of the Loess Plateau, China

Reporter: Li Meng Ping

Time: 15:30-16:30pm, Nov.24, 2017 (Friday)

Venue: Meeting Room C304, The Building of Economics, Management and Landscape Architecture

Summary: The sustainable livelihoods framework (SLF) highlights the positive relationship between a broad portfolio of household livelihood capitals and adaptive capacity to climate change. However, the SLF overlooks the interactions and transformations that occur between different types of capital. To test our hypothesis that complementarity-substitution exists between the five livelihood capitals, and that only increasing complementary capital can improve adaptive capacity, we assessed the adaptive capacity of apple farmers to drought events in the Loess Plateau, China. This was done through a substitutive-complementary analysis of the relationships between social, human, physical, natural, and financial capital. Using Pearson’s correlation analysis, we tested the impact of 13 livelihood capital indicators on farmers’ adaptive capacity. We found that some forms of capital have a substitutive effect, some have a complementary effect, and others have both. It is the overall product of these complementary indicators that increases adaptive capacity. We conclude that a substitutive-complementary approach can enhance our understanding of the role of livelihood capital in reducing farmers’ vulnerability and strengthen approaches to increasing adaptive capacity.

College of Economics and Management