"With recent history of famine, China now contends with obesity" by Debra Bruno |
Washington Post, January 06, 2013
BEIJING — Older people in China remember the Great Famine of 1958-61,
when 15 million to 45 million people died of hunger and related causes.
Woah!
Today, nearly every street corner in Beijing and many other cities
seems to boast a McDonald’s. There are KFC outlets in almost every
Chinese city....
There is the source of your obesity crisis.
Meanwhile, newly minted members of the
Chinese middle class have rushed to buy cars, leaving bicycles that were
once a major source of exercise rusting on the street.
They were for me once; however, I'm too old to take my life in my hands.
Pizza Hut is considered a fancy date-night restaurant, T.G.I.
Friday’s has several branches in Beijing, and cans of Coca-Cola are sold
at every corner stand.
With fast food and rising affluence, a country only a generation
removed from hunger is getting fat, according to the World Health
Organization....
There is a standing joke, notes Dr. Lyn Wren of International
SOS Beijing Clinic, that ‘‘Chinese waistlines are growing faster than
the GDP.’’
Given how impoverished the country was not long ago and how
impoverished parts of it still are, ‘‘having a problem where people are
eating too much — it can seem a little churlish to complain about
that,’’ says Paul French, the Shanghai-based author of ‘‘Fat China: How
Expanding Waistlines are Changing a Nation.’’
French and coauthor Matthew Crabbe found that even as recently as
five years ago, obesity wasn’t recognized as a problem by health
professionals in China.
The Chinese Health Ministry has said it encourages healthful eating
programs in schools and the construction of playgrounds to promote
exercise.
Are they as good as the slop being served to AmeriKan kids?
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention makes vague
references to ‘‘health promotion’’ and providing ‘‘scientific guidance
for healthy diets,’’ but major campaigns about eating healthfully and
exercising are not evident.
They don't get a food pyramid like AmeriKan kids?
In fact, pushing the population to lose weight, exercise, and cut
back on unhealthful foods seems to strike a discordant note to some
inside the government, French says. “Their argument was: Right now we’re
trying to tell them to do and not do a lot of things,’’ such as not
spitting on the street, not dropping trash everywhere, and not driving
‘‘like complete idiots.’’
Although the era of famine is long past, many grandparents and parents still push their children to eat a lot.
And what the Globe website took off my printed paper plate:
Recent scares about contaminated milk, fruit and vegetables have made
consumers feel more safe buying and eating packaged foods. Yet, the fat and sugar content of many packaged
foods is often much higher.
You can go see for yourself....
--more--"
