thats wot happens when you eat cheese doodles in china

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Obesity skyrocketing in China as the Chinese adopt western diets,

lifestyles

Posted Friday, August 18, 2006 by NewsTarget, Key concepts: china,

obesity and health trends.

 

(NewsTarget) A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal says

that Chinese people are becoming overweight and obese at an " alarming "

rate, with the country experiencing a 28-fold increase in obesity over

a 15-year period from 1985 to 2000.

Experts blame the Chinese obesity epidemic on lifestyles that include

less exercise and increased meat consumption and car use. Today there

are 20 million cars on the roads in China; six years ago there were

only 6 million. Chinese people also increased their dietary intake of

meat from 8 percent in 1982 to 25 percent in 2002, which experts warn

could result in an upcoming epidemic of heart disease or diabetes.

 

" China was once considered to have one of the leanest populations, but

it is fast catching up with the west, " writes Wu Yangfeng of the

Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. " Disturbingly, this has occurred

in a remarkably short time. "

 

Tony Barnett, head of the diabetes and obesity group at Birmingham

University in the UK, calls the rise in obesity " incredibly dramatic "

and says that part of the problem is " urbanization " in China. " What

goes with urbanization is changes in diet and changes in lifestyle, but

particularly exercise, " says Barnett. " All of the evidence that we have

is that it is the reduction of activity that is contributing more, or

at least as much, as changes in diet to the epidemic. "

 

China's 2002 national nutrition health survey revealed that 14.7

percent of Chinese people are overweight, with 2.6 percent obese. While

those numbers do not compare with U.S. obesity -- where two-thirds of

the population is overweight with one-third obese -- Wu says China is

catching up quickly. Currently one-fifth of the world's obese people

are Chinese.

 

Wu also says the Chinese cultural attitude that excess body fat

represents prosperity and health only makes the obesity problem worse.

" This is perhaps a consequence of China's recent history, where famine

and chronic malnutrition caused the deaths of millions of people, " Wu

says.

 

 

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