- NEW YORK - It had to happen
sooner or later: The Chinese, already richer, are getting fatter.
-
- Two years ago, China got its first drive-through Yum!
Brands' Kentucky Fried Chicken and at the same time private car ownership
has surged. Now a government survey concludes that there are 60 million
obese people in China. That's slightly more than there are in the United
States.
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- China, of course, has more people, and its obesity rate
is far lower than America's. But it's catching up. The survey indicates
that the number of obese people in China doubled between 1992 and 2002.
If the trend continued--the survey took some time to tabulate--China has
overtaken America as the fat capital of the world.
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- The prevalence of diseases related to an unhealthy diet
and lifestyle is also on the rise, the government said.
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- The new statistic derives from China's first comprehensive
national survey on diet, nutrition and diseases, which was conducted by
the Ministry of Health. It found that 7.1% of Chinese adults were obese
and 22.8% were overweight, Wang Longde, China's vice minister of health,
told a news conference. He added that an estimated 200 million of China's
population of around 1.3 billion were overweight.
-
- In the U.S., the obesity rate is 30.5% and about 65%
are considered overweight, according to the National Center for Health
Statistics. With the U.S. population at 294.5 million, it looks like China
has edged past the U.S. in its number of overweight folks, as well.
-
- "Compared with the nutrition survey results of 1992,
the prevalence of being overweight has increased 39% and the prevalence
of obesity increased 97%," the vice minister said, as quoted in newswire
reports. He said both trends are likely to continue, as Forbes.com predicted
two years ago.
-
- While the survey results are for 2002, they were not
revealed until this week because the nationwide survey of 270,000 took
that long to tabulate. The study linked the rise in obesity to the decline
poverty and fattier diets, the same trends that have affected the West.
-
- A separate survey said that about 60% of adults in Beijing
are overweight, and obesity has become more and more common among children
there, according to a Reuters report.
-
- It is not clear, though, whether the Chinese surveys
use the same definitions of obesity as in the U.S. or elsewhere.
-
- But health officials said they are seeing some of the
same medical problems. The hypertension rate among adults has reached 18.8%,
increasing by 31% since 1991. About 160 million Chinese people suffer from
high blood pressure, the study found. About 20 million people--2.6% of
the adult population--are diabetic.
-
- "The Chinese population does not have enough awareness
and lacks knowledge of what is a reasonable nutrition and diet," Wang
said. Some Chinese people were consuming an excessive amount of meat, oils
and fats and not enough cereal, especially urban residents. With fewer
Chinese doing physical labor, more driving cars instead of bicycles, lifestyle
has played a prominent role in the trend.
-
- Also part of the trend: fast-food restaurants feeding
the People's Republic. Kentucky Fried Chicken leads the way, according
to a report by the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture. McDonald's, which has a "worldwide partnership"
with NBA star Yao Ming, has been expanding rapidly there. Japan's Mos Burger,
local Western-style fast-food chains, Japanese fast-food chains, and Yum!
Brands' Pizza Hut are also establishing presences.
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- While the trend in China parallels that in the U.S.,
it is "much more rapid," says Frank Hu, an associate professor
in the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, who
has conducted his own studies of the phenomenon. "The numbers are
staggering," Hu says, as the jump in obesity, especially in cities
and among children, has come after just one or two decades of rapid urbanization
and what Hu calls the "westernization of diet and lifestyle."
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- © 2004 Forbes.com Inc.ô All Rights Reserved.
http://www.forbes.com/business/healthcare/2004/10/13/cx_da_1013topnews.html
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