As Obesity Rises, Chinese Kids Are Almost as Fat as Americans

Two boys do sit-ups during a 20-day summer camp for overweight teenagers in Shenyang in Liaoning province.European Pressphoto Agency

China’s getting fatter and it’s weighing down the future of its children.
The country is now No. 2 for obesity, with its number of obese residents outstripped only by the U.S. Its obesity rate has skyrocketed over the last three decades, resulting in 46 million obese Chinese adults and 300 million who are overweight, according to a study by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
Published in the medical journal The Lancet, the study analyzed weight trends in 188 countries and found that more than 28% of Chinese adult men and 27% of the country’s adult women are overweight or obese.

The study defined overweight as having a weight-to-height ratio, or Body Mass Index, that is equal to or greater than 25. Obesity was defined as having a BMI of 30 or greater.
Even the country’s armed forces have been getting fatter, with the People’s Liberation Army facing challenges as its soldiers have begun to have trouble fitting into traditionally-sized tanks.
Pitted against the U.S., China’s still looking skinny, the report said, noting that the U.S. accounts for 13% of the world’s obesity, while China and India together represent 15%. There are three times as many obese or overweight men in the U.S. than in China and twice as many obese or overweight women in the U.S., it said. More than half of the world’s 671 million obese people live in 10 countries, the study said.
Though obesity is more of an adult phenomenon in China, children and adolescents aren’t immune. The study’s authors say that China’s child obesity is alarming: According to their findings, 23% of Chinese boys under age 20 are overweight or obese, while comparable figure for girls is 14%. Such figures largely surpass those of other high-income countries, including Japan and South Korea.
Childhood obesity has severe health effects, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and various types of cancers, said Marie Ng, the study’s lead author and a professor of global health at the University of Washington. The high percentages in China are “especially troubling.” Ms. Ng said. “We need to be thinking now about how to turn this trend around.”
Health experts say that China’s waistline has grown with its economy. Like many developed countries, China has found that bad habits came with greater wealth. For China, lack of exercise and unhealthy diets have helped fuel an onslaught of obesity-linked diseases.
Others also question whether China’s one-child policy, which has created a land of little emperors doted on by their parents and grandparents, might have also contributed to the phenomenon.