Rise in childhood obesity rates ‘worrying’
Print Edition
RESEARCHERS yesterday raised the alarm about an obesity explosion among children in rural China as a Western-style diets high in sugar and carbohydrates take their toll.
A 29-year survey of children in east China’s Shandong Province claimed that 17 percent of males and 9 percent of females aged between 7 and 18 were obese in 2014. In 1985, the figure for both groups was less than 1 percent.
“This is extremely worrying,” the European Society of Cardiology’s Joep Perk said of the study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
“It is the worst explosion of childhood and adolescent obesity that I have ever seen.”
The data come from six government surveys of about 28,000 schoolchildren in Shandong.
The study used different measures of Body Mass Index (BMI) than the World Health Organization (WHO) standard.
BMI is a ratio of weight-to-height squared.
According to the WHO, a BMI of 25-29.9 is classified as overweight, and from 30 upwards obese. The study authors used a stricter cut-off of 24-27.9 for overweight, and 28 for obese.
This means it would be difficult to compare the numbers to other countries, but does not invalidate the fattening trend observed within China itself, Perk said.
Rapid changes
“China has experienced rapid socioeconomic and nutritional changes in the past 30 years,” said study co-author Zhang Yingxiu of the Shandong Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“In China today, people eat more and are less physically active than they were in the past. The traditional Chinese diet has shifted towards one that is high in fat and calories and low in fibre.”
The WHO says being overweight is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, diabetes, and some cancers.
“China is set for an escalation of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and the popularity of the Western lifestyle will cost lives,” Perk said.
The study found that the trend was growing faster in children aged 7 to 12 than in adolescents.
It also speculated that the higher prevalence among boys could be the result of a “societal preference” for males, which “could result in boys enjoying more of the family’s resources.”
A 2005 National Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance found that 4.3 percent of boys and 2.7 percent of girls frequently enjoyed soft drinks. Nearly 13 percent of boys and 4.3 percent of girls spent more than two hours per day playing computer games.
National implications
“The adoption of Western foods, notably American junk food high in calories and sugary drinks, is the cause of this phenomenon,” said French obesity expert David Nocca.
The study said the findings had implications for the whole of China, as almost half its population is in rural areas.
“The rises in overweight and obese children coincide with increasing incomes in rural households and we expect this trend to continue in the coming decades in Shandong Province and other regions of China,” Zhang said.
“This is a wake-up call for policy-makers that rural China should not be neglected in obesity interventions. We need to educate children on healthy eating and physical activity, and monitor their weight to check if these efforts are making a difference.”
Last year, a Chinese national report said adult obesity rates reached 9.6 percent in 2012, more than doubling in a decade.
A study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in March 2015 said three out of four people in China were in poor cardiovascular shape.
Cardiovascular disease has become the leading cause of death in China, and the prevalence of diabetes has more than doubled in 10 years.
China’s expansion is part of a global one: a poll in April in The Lancet medical journal, said one in five adults in the world could be obese by 2025.
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