Is that your kid?

StephenW

China's spoilt generation takes obesity to new level                                            London  June 25, 2011   

                                                                            Epidemic ... obesity has risen in the past decade. Photo: AP
        
SHANGHAI: China's spoilt generation of single children is rapidly becoming overweight, a report shows, while their parents are also growing obese faster than any other country apart from Mexico.
There has been a 25 per cent rise in obesity in Shanghai's primary school children over the past decade, with 13 per cent overweight and almost half of those also obese, said the report from Jiao Tong University.
Officials have blamed China's rush to emulate Western culture, the plethora of fast food outlets and the tendency of parents in one-child families to express their affection through food.
   
''The kids have a bad diet, a sedentary lifestyle and very little knowledge about sports,'' said Paul French, the author of Fat China, a book about China's changing diet.
''Type 2 diabetes is a huge problem and dentists are complaining that they are pulling second teeth in children as young as 12,'' he said.
In an indication of the contagion from the West, China has even staged its first competitive hot dog eating contest in Beijing. Chris Lam, 32, from Hong Kong, won the event, eating 16 in 10 minutes.
The figures from the university put Shanghai almost on a par with the US, where about 18 per cent of primary school children are overweight.
China still has a long way to go to match Britain, where   almost a third of children leaving primary school are overweight. The rise of obesity may also be a side effect of China's sudden prosperity.
The number of obese people has risen from 18 million in 2005 to 100 million last year, or nearly 8 per cent of the population, while 500 million, or 39 per cent, are overweight.
China remains far behind the US, where 74 per cent of adults are overweight, and Britain, where the figure was 61 per cent in 2009. In Australia, 61.4 per cent of adults are overweight or obese, according to the National Health Survey of 2007-08.
''The Chinese are now blase about food. They over-order at restaurants and sometimes just walk away, to show they can,'' Mr French said.
He said the hot dog competition was ''a celebration of gluttony'', a sign that the country no longer had to  worry about whether there would be enough food.
China was still in the grip of mass starvation less than half a century ago under Chairman Mao, which led to the death of 30 million people.
Telegraph, London
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/chinas-spoilt-generation-takes-obesity-to-new-level-20110624-1gjgl.html#ixzz1QGXkwVaB

meigo

OMGD

StephenW

meigo 发表于 2011-6-28 21:44
OMGD

OMG - it is your kid or it is you

meigo

not mine.
Kids can't be too overweight.

StephenW

回复 meigo 的帖子

You must say he is cute.