China’s National Nutrition and Health Steering Committee published a set of dietary guidelines on Sunday designed to address China’s rapidly growing problem with obesity.
The state-run Xinhua news agency reported the new guidelines call for increased consumption of “vegetables and fruits, whole grains, and aquatic products.”
Recommended “aquatic products” included fatty fish like salmon, eel, mackerel, seaweed, and shellfish. The Steering Committee instructed adults to eat at least 300 grams of vegetables and 200 grams of fruit every day, plus whole grains such as brown rice, oats, and whole wheat.
“The latest dietary guidance comes amid growing concern over rising obesity rates. Data from the National Health Commission shows that the combined overweight and obesity rate among Chinese adults has reached 51.2 percent. Without intervention, this figure could surpass 70 percent by 2030,” Xinhua observed.
China’s National Health Commission (NHC) recognized obesity as a major issue last year and launched a three-year program to combat it, including dietary and exercise recommendations. Frustrated by the lack of progress in the first year of the plan, the NHC said in March that it would begin installing “weight management clinics” at hospitals.
The Washington Post reported in April that Chinese officials are pushing “lite” menus at restaurants, recruiting volunteers to deliver doorstep sermons on the risks of obesity, and putting scales in hotel rooms so business travelers can watch their weight. Companies have been told to add mandatory workout breaks to the daily routine of their employees, while universities are holding weight-loss competitions.
“Obesity is a relatively new but fast-growing headache in a nation that had long struggled to feed its people. When the U.S. National Institutes of Health declared obesity a disease in 1998, more people in China were undernourished (over 10 percent of the population) than obese (around 8 percent for adults),” the Washington Post noted.
China’s vast population means an obesity rate lower than the U.S. has produced a vastly higher number of obese people — some 400 million as of the last peer-reviewed study, compared to 172 million in the U.S. and only 180 million in India, whose population is now larger than China’s.
The NHC calculated that 65 percent of China’s population could be obese by 2030, increasing health care costs by nearly $57 billion. High obesity rates brought corresponding increases in hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular issues to China. East Asians have considerably higher risk of cardio disease, even at lower body-mass index (BMI) levels than Europeans.
One of China’s problems is a cultural predilection to equate obesity with prosperity, particularly among men — a cultural consequence that flows from a long history of malnutrition and famine. Chinese women would generally prefer to be thin, which is one reason for the rapidly growing interest in anti-obesity drugs like Ozempic.
On the other hand, weight-loss experts say China’s moribund economy is contributing to the obesity epidemic by driving people to eat cheaper and less healthy food. The Chinese fast food market has more than doubled in value over the past decade.
Unemployment is high, while rapid industrialization and urbanization over the past three decades mean those with jobs are more likely to hold sedentary jobs, and while those jobs do not provide a great deal of calorie-burning physical activity, the “996” work culture of working 12-hour shifts six days a week leads to stress eating.
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