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November 24, 2016

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Home » Metro » Health and Science

Efforts over obesity are paying off

By Chen Huizhi | November 24, 2016, Thursday | Print Edition

LOCAL medical experts said yesterday efforts to curb obesity are working in Shanghai.

The increase of child obesity rates has been slowing down in recent years thanks to enhanced awareness and skills across society to tackle the problem, they said.

That concerted effort of different various groups positively contributes to the process was also confirmed by world health administrators attending the global conference on health.

Wan Yanping, head of the Clinical Nutrition Department at Renji Hospital, said that from her 20 years or so of driving a social agenda in fighting child obesity, the effort had paid off and promised greater success.

In rural Jinshan District and Gaohang Town in Pudong New Area, through a recent two-year effort led by Wan in educating schools, parents, school lunch providers and community volunteers, about child obesity — as well as training community hospital doctors on the issue — half of about 3,000 obese children covered by the program had made great strides to resolve their condition.

“It’s actually a challenging effort because when helping them shed undesirable weight, we’ll have to ensure that their physical growth and nutritional levels are kept up, and we’ve succeeded,” Wan said.

There was still a daunting job ahead though, she said. In 2014, Wan’s team estimated that 27.4 percent of schoolchildren in Shanghai suffered from obesity, compared with 6.2 percent in 1994.

Coupled with activities in schools to provide healthy food to children and promoting a healthy diet for children, world governments are mulling over or taking action on food manufacturers, the conference was told.

Health and Science


 

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