As China's wallets get fatter, so do their children

John, San Francisco, CA — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:25:52 GMT

Chinese education and sports (lack of) also contribute to the problem.

As people should know now, although Chinese are high in the metal count, the athletes were picked young and trained in sporting schools. The physical exercise time in a regular school is minimum, and kids are overburdened with homeworks, so they have little time to play. With the modern high-rise apartment homes, it is hard to find companies to place to play anyway.

Instead, kids and adults are couch potato sports fans. They will cheer for some sports, but few does any sports personally.

As the result, being fat is just part of the consequences. Many kids are near sighted from young age. Many don't have basic skills to take care of themselves when going to college.

This problem is commonly known in China. Many regular Chinese folks complain about the education/sports system. However, it is unlikely to change in the near future.

The interesting thing is, once graduating from college, most Chinese folks start to do at least some sports, mainly badminton. I rarely see any overweight adults here. American kids are more into sports during youth, but once they enter the workforce, it seems they hardly have time to continue the exercise. Maybe because American are more into team sports (Football, Basketball etc) and it gets difficult to get a group together. Chinese main sports are Ping Pong and Badminton, and two or three people is enough to play for a couple of hours.

China is a different culture, and it faces a lot of problems and challenges. I hope the American media will try to truly understand the culture and society instead of attacking China for political purposes. This article is a good start, and there is so much more you can write about how a Chinese kid's life is different from American kid.

As China's wallets get fatter, so do their children

Kim — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:02:00 GMT

I live in Thailand and you see the same problem here overweight kids but here as I've been told is the same in China is that the parents think fat kids are cute. It also gives the outward appearance the family is wealthy(Chinese influence) . Here kids play sports in and school and after. But by the time they reach school age the kids are so overweight the damage has already been done. They just don't know how to eat normal sized portions because they were never given normal sized portions. It also has to do with their parents giving in to the kids when ever they want something to eat whether is fruit, candy or McDonald's.

As China's wallets get fatter, so do their children

Fred, Columbus OH — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:07:24 GMT

@John,

Yes China is very different, having spent a few months in southern China, I can attest to that. There is little room for football fields, running tracks, tennis courts, etc near any of the schools.

That being said, John points out that there are not many obese adults. I would say this is a generational issue more than children outgrowing obesity. Remember, the one child policy children are just becoming adults, the current 30+ year adults grew up during the Cultural Revolution, when people were starving and before the one child policy began.

I would bet that as this generation gets older, the adults will also be more obese than their parents, grandparents, etc.

China's economy grew so fast, and so much new stuff has entered into their reach that they are somewhat overwhelmed. Picture taking someone from the WWI era and dropping them in the new millenium. This is what happened in China, and they are enjoying all of it.

As China's wallets get fatter, so do their children

dave greisinger,oshkosh,wi — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:50:20 GMT

Blming fast food is a lamb excuse. How about cars and moving from a rural ag culture to a big city culture.Lots of real reasons for this the least of which are KFC and the school pysed program.