Protected areas of defined geographic zones can slow biodiversity loss and bolster conversation efforts, but they may have unintended impacts on the diets of children who live nearby, according to new research from scientists at Penn State.
Published in the British Ecological Society’s journal People and Nature, the researchers analysed children’s diets in Cambodia and Myanmar by distance from the nearest protected area. They found that diet quality increased the farther from the protected area the child lived up to about 80 km and then declined at greater distances.
The researchers also found that, in Indigenous population areas, the odds that children ate vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables were highest around 80 km and lower both nearer and farther away. The same association did not persist in non-Indigenous areas.
Visit: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.70145