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Posts: 209

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Q: Will obesity in China eclipse that of America and the UK?

With the amount of McDonald's and KFC's around as well as all the snacks, chocolates and biscuits that are all so cheap coupled with the fact many young Chinese spend most of their free time on front of the computer....what do you think? There doesn't seem to be much awareness about eating all this crap either, when I was a yung'un, my mamma always told me not to eat fast food!

11 years 5 weeks ago in  Food  - China

 
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No, it won't people here still walk more/exercise more than Americans. You see I've only seen one drive thru in China and this was way out in the country...

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11 years 5 weeks ago

There are cookies, bookies and too many rookies for me to sit here trying to be a hooky! Looky Looky don't call me a wooky. Touchy Touchy Feely Feely Spicy Spicy Nicey Nicey & that's what the doctor Ordered!!

 
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no. life in china demands more physical activity. and they treat over weight people very cruelly . also the govt does not encourage people to be fat slobs the same as the us does. in america, being fat is classified as a disability which is truly stupid. also so many stores like walmart cater to people's laziness by providing motorized carts. china doesn't even care about the truly disabled, so they will not care about people who do not know when to push away from the table.

mattsm84:

Yea, because fat people eat just to get that sweet government check and park in handicapped spaces. Thank you for solving this problem of us.

11 years 5 weeks ago
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Amonk:

It's a mental health problem, that of the child and the parents. Lack of education and a pop-health industry with backwards incentives for people to remain unhealthy and to raise their children in that way. I have no problem saying this as I and my parents were obese. You cannot solve the physical manifestations of a mental health issue until you resolve the underlying condition(s).

11 years 5 weeks ago
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11 years 5 weeks ago
 
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I have to agree with everyone.  America's obesity has grown into a lifestyle.  It is part of the culture with many ways to facilitate it.  That will never happen in China, at least not anytime soon.

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11 years 5 weeks ago
 
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Yep! It will... it'll take a while, but it's going to happen!

 

People 'exercise' because they have to (ie, out in the country), but just look at what's happening in the big cities! It's only a matter of time before they catch up to the US and UK's current situation... and by then, maybe those 2 places will have decreased their obesity rates...

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11 years 5 weeks ago
 
Posts: 1420

Shifu

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On aggregate? Flatly no. Large pockets of this place are going to remain undeveloped for decades. People in those areas are going to tend to weigh less. If we compare metropolitan areas, then it becomes a qualified maybe. Public transit is certainly going to continue to develop, which means that people are less apt to walk or ride their bikes. But the Chinese seem to be resistant to sprawl and having a car culture would contribute to inactivity, and weight gain.

 

Even then though, I'd lay the greatest share blame for obesity in the US at the feet of agricultural subsidies, and in particular the ones for corn. Really, the US only started to have a national problem with obesity in the 1970s when then Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz (Hilarious!) suggested to President Nixon that he could win over farmers, who typically voted Democratic, and housewives if he used government subsidies to encourage the farmers to over produce grains. This kept the price of food down, and encouraged a great deal of innovation as companies tried to figure out what to do with the excess grains. One thing that they discovered was that corn could be refined into a very sweet sugar cheaply. Originally, this high fructose corn syrup was used to fatten live stock, but eventually they started putting into everything.

 

I mean look at Canada. It's nearly identical to the US in terms of culture, yet they don't have anywhere near the problem with obesity. Why? Because they are smart enough to ban the stuff. The idea that western consumer culture is literally driving people over eat then doesn't really hold water.

 

China relies more heavily on rice, and most of the new money that goes into agriculture goes toward things like automation, rather than over production. Although that isn't to imply that they won't make a similar mistake in another area. I mean, a great deal of the problem here with pollution is because of how heavily subsidized the Chinese Coal industry is.

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11 years 5 weeks ago
 
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Living in what is one of the richer parts of the country, I see very few people biking, an increasing number of people can take the lift straight from their apartment to their Lexus (or fake Lexus for some) parked in the basement below, they can drive to an office building, park conveniently and on the way home they do not get out of their cars to wait for their kids to walk in slowmotion to the car, then to drive to a shopping plaza where the kid gets whatever treat he/she wants. Of course to counter this, they will go out in the evening and slowly walk backwards while clapping, all in a manner that does not get the heartbeat much above that of a sleeping person.

Of course those people coming to the city from some place out in the sticks are all skinny and will probably remain so as they do actual work to stay alive. It will most likely remain so outside the most developed areas

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11 years 5 weeks ago
 
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Yup:

 

"The definition of being overweight is having a body mass index of 25 or greater. According to the World Health Organization’s Global Info Database, for those ages 15 and older, 45 percent of males in China and 32 percent of females were overweight, or an average of 38.5 percent of the 2010 population.  This is a sharp increase from the 2002 statistic of 25 percent. 

With an overweight percentage of 38 percent and rising, mainland China is home to a staggering 380 million-plus people with weight problems. And studies show that the problem is becoming increasingly prevalent among youth, and may largely define urban China’s near-term future."

 

My new tourism business will be "Hey Americans! Want to feel thin and dainty? Come to China!"

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11 years 5 weeks ago
 
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I thought being fat meant you had money to the Chinese. I hardly saw fat Chinese while wondering around, but while flying on planes all the passengers seemed over weight.

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11 years 5 weeks ago
 
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It will definitely catch up...eventually, but it won't be noticeable in the younger population because the girls eat less to stay thin. This currently young generation will get old and have more disease and lack of health than any past generations, and it's not just because of pollution and lack of food safety (because it's this way in Western countries too). They've replaced traditional oils with vegetable and canola oils. They're eating more wheat than in the past. They snack on processed foods. Fortunately in their home lives their parents still cook foods with lots of veggies.

 

The change comes slowest to those who live in the countryside, but what about those who live in the city? Many people who live in the city don't have an apartment with a kitchen, they eat at restaurants all the time. The effects of eating this way aren't obvious when we're young, they show up much later. Despite the fact that Chinese don't eat American fast food, I would consider most Chinese restaurants to be fast food because of all the sodium, vegetable/canola oils, chemicals and poor quality ingredients they use. And while rice is a fairly benign starch, it's basically all carbs, and they tend to load up on the rice.

 

By the way, my theory as to why people have toilet issues in China is because of all the vegetable/canola oil, which is inflammatory, especially heated to such high temperatures. The real traditional cooking oil in China was lard, which is very stable even at high temperatures and has a good ratio of fats (saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated). This is the biggest change in Chinese cuisine, and I think it's a major factor in why health in China is declining in the past few decades.

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11 years 5 weeks ago
 
Posts: 456

Shifu

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Ten years ago when I first visited China ( Nanning) I saw no fat women and very few fat men.. Where the East coast of the US has around 70% obese women And 40% men. Eat more do less and you get fat. Golf carts with obese men driving them? As the Chinese get more affluent they will get lazy and get fat. Franck3

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11 years 5 weeks ago
 
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https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/

 

Let's all be fat pigs and proud. I guess my fasting regimen is just genetics and does not really work.

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5 years 26 weeks ago
 
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