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China Medicine News Science Technology

Obesity 'Explosion' In Young Rural Chinese A Result Of Socioeconomic Changes, Study Warns (bbc.com) 165

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: Obesity has rapidly increased in young rural Chinese, a study has warned, because of socioeconomic changes. Researchers found 17% of boys and 9% of girls under the age of 19 were obese in 2014, up from 1% for each in 1985. The 29-year study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, involved nearly 28,000 students in Shandong province. The study said China's rapid socioeconomic and nutritional transition has led to an increase in energy intake and a decrease in physical activity. The data was taken from six government surveys of rural school children in Shandong aged between seven and 18. The percentage of overweight children has also grown from 0.7% to 16.4% for boys and from 1.5% to nearly 14% for girls, the study said. "It is the worst explosion of childhood and adolescent obesity that I have ever seen," Joep Perk from the European Society of Cardiology told AFP news agency.
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Obesity 'Explosion' In Young Rural Chinese A Result Of Socioeconomic Changes, Study Warns

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  • by Maritz ( 1829006 ) on Friday April 29, 2016 @05:25AM (#52011671)
    Ew...
  • by sociocapitalist ( 2471722 ) on Friday April 29, 2016 @05:27AM (#52011677)

    Calorie poor countries tend to have relatively wealthy people who are overweight because they can be and poor people can't be.

  • Why is this here? (Score:2, Informative)

    "News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters."

    This is like browsing the front page of yahoo.com or something. WTF? Why is this even here? And it's not like China is the topic either, as comments will immediately change the subject to America.

    • The new owners are getting desperate for hits. Any bets on how long this site will last?
      • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

        Depends on whether or not the new dotcom cycle busts before or at the same point that the economy hits the wall.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      "News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters."

      You're right. The global obesity epidemic is of no interest. It's not interesting to see how it's playing out in countries other than America (who's currently #1 ignoring very small countries).

      Whiplash, if you're listening, can you please NOT post anything except stories about new kernels and vi versus emacs threads.

      • I write most of my code in emacs, but I do my system administration with vi.

        But if I'm in a hurry, I use just cat.

        To stay on topic, I lost 50lb over the last 2.5 years by removing heavily processed ingredients from my diet and increasing my exercise. The secret about calories and processed foods... the processed crap has more calories for the same volume of food, or the same amount of flavor. You can eat a big plate of veggies with a reasonable amount of yummy sauce, and be losing weight right from the base

    • "News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters."

      This is like browsing the front page of yahoo.com or something. WTF? Why is this even here?

      There are technological aspects to the issue, such as what we ingest - and it isn't all just the food, it's what it is packaged in.

    • "News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters."

      This is like browsing the front page of yahoo.com or something. WTF? Why is this even here? And it's not like China is the topic either, as comments will immediately change the subject to America.

      Nerds struggle with obesity (just like everyone else).

      Nerds also like interesting scientific problems. Why are young rural Chinese in particular being affected? Have they really just gotten that lazy? Are the types of food different? Was there supply pressure discouraging overeating previously? Other societal factors? Is this just affecting children or is something similar happening to adults?

      Obesity is fascinating as a health issue. We know exactly how to make a fat person thin, just starve them for a whil

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Why stay in shape?

  • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday April 29, 2016 @06:52AM (#52011881) Homepage

    I can tell you the source. McDonalds and other fast food. Ban those and the obesity will drop fast. Also Bad Sodas like Coke, Pepsi,etc...

    I love the Bullshit people claiming "adding meat did this" no it's the horridly overprocessed shit that fast food places sell coupled with drinking Gallons of sugar water daily.

    • McDonalds and other fast food. Ban those and the obesity will drop fast

      To change that, you need to change laws. But, while there are tons of laws to keep people from being physically hurt, it seems difficult to institute strict laws related to eating and drinking (and selling food/drinks).

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by operagost ( 62405 )

      Do you even know if McDonalds is present in RURAL areas of China? Last I looked, they were in the cities. And I'd like to see your figures on the "Bad Sodas" usage. What are the "Good Sodas"? If you don't actually have any of this data (hint: you don't), then I suggest actually reading the study conveniently linked to this story. One point is that the study, for whatever reason, used a stricter BMI classification than the WHO. Apparently, the researchers thought they were smarter than the rest of the

      • What are the "Good Sodas"?

        Water with a slice of lemon.

      • In most of Asia, small towns only have KFC, not McDonalds. McDonalds is an American thing, and a big city "American food" thing. KFC is the locally-familiar fast food in Asia.

        And in Thailand, American Food usually means Pizza Hut instead of McDonalds. But KFC is still king of crapfood.

    • Always believe that sociological problems are simple. Banning fast food and soft drinks does not increase activity, so it does not fix the problem. Soda bans in NYC for example did nothing to curb obesity, not even a little. Similarly, forcing 30 minutes of exercise does not change the source food so has mixed results. Exercise with a shitty diet leads to injury and illness.

      The problem is really both diet and exercise. "Western" lifestyle has drastically changed both of those things. Solutions won't c

      • 30 minutes exercise does nothing.
        The first 45 minutes are in an adult fueled by sugar stored in the liver.
        Only after that time the body starts to burn fat. So basically everything less than 90 minutes makes not much sense.

        Yes, doing exercises would change your base burning rate, but depending on what you eat, high fat combined with high carbs and lots of sugar deposits the fat you eat directly into the fat cells.

        The problem is really both diet and exercise.
        No, it is 100% diet. People tend to overestimate

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      I can tell you the source. McDonalds and other fast food.

      I have to disagree. The calorie density of the food itself does NOT appear to be the cause of obesity when careful studies are done.

      The only reason "healthy" food makes people lose weight is because it tastes like crap. Eating bad-tasting food indeed is an appetite suppressor, resulting in some weight loss. You can demonstrate the extreme of this by shitting in a hamburger: nobody will eat it.

      It's the yumminess that makes a burger fattening, not fat,

    • If you try to ban Sugardrink, criminals will just sell it on the streetcorner. And none of the neighbors will report them, because they'll be armed and on a sugar rush.

      Just Say No to added sugar. Attend a meeting. Or buy a masticating slow juicer and switch to fresh carrot juice.

  • The Cure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jim Sadler ( 3430529 ) on Friday April 29, 2016 @07:42AM (#52012111)
    China is less restrained in problem solving than we are. I hate to think just what they might do if obesity officially becomes a problem. Somehow i picture youth being herded into fat camps where they labor and are forced to get into slender shapes. They obviously keep their military people in a very slim form by simply keeping them hungry and requiring exercise.
    • The obvious answer is to herd those young people into the military... not that I suggest it is a good answer, just the obvious one

      • China is in the process of shrinking the number of soldiers they have, so they can modernize and have a high tech military instead. So for people who read news about the subject you bring up, it would be very non-obvious to think there would be room for them there.

        • China is in the process of shrinking the number of soldiers they have, so they can modernize and have a high tech military instead.

          Yeah, good luck with that shit. The only way China is scary right now is if they use their numbers.

          • China is in the process of shrinking the number of soldiers they have, so they can modernize and have a high tech military instead.

            Yeah, good luck with that shit. The only way China is scary right now is if they use their numbers.

            Right, they probably have other users for their military than scaring some random guy on the internet.

            In fact, looking around the world, there is no country or even non-State actors who would have any reason to care what you think.

            OTOH, every military analysis available says that they've been working on a major modernization plan for a long time and they've already made a bunch of progress.

            Where do you live that their numbers are scary? Vietnam? Even their other neighbors are more worried about the moderniz

    • China is less restrained in problem solving than we are. I hate to think just what they might do if obesity officially becomes a problem. Somehow i picture youth being herded into fat camps where they labor and are forced to get into slender shapes. They obviously keep their military people in a very slim form by simply keeping them hungry and requiring exercise.

      Fat kids don't make that good of organ donors, so you're right; it will take a bunch of forced labor just to prepare them for, uh, re-education.

      Nothing re-educates a being like being divided and placed inside a bunch of other bodies. Just ask a falun gong practitioner! Or at least, ask their kidneys.

  • by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Friday April 29, 2016 @07:57AM (#52012175)
    Communism is the best cure we have today for obesity. Just ask the North Koreans, or apparently the Chinese kids of 1985.
  • Muhahahah.

    It's coming for everyone.
    http://www.techtimes.com/artic... [techtimes.com]
    "WHO Warns Of Upcoming Obesity Epidemic In Europe"

    I've said for years that it's not an "American" thing, it's an affluence thing.

  • hardly a surprise when you look at their pop stars/role models:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Obesity is better than malnourishment every day of the week.
    • One could argue that obesity is a form of malnourishment. Not under-nourishment, malnourishment.

  • Obesity is a form of mass poisoning. The food supply is the problem.

  • Mr. Creosote. I can't watch that movie because of that scene. Now I can't read this article about obesity explosions because the title reminds me of him.
  • Separating causation in a case like this will be fantastically hard. My gut feeling (see what I did there) is that something like a gut bacteria is the route cause of much of the expanding waistlines. Even identifying a gut bacteria can be hard for if the cause were just crappy fast food, there could be bacteria that simply thrive in the presence of crappy fast food.

    People of course use data like this to support their favourite issues such as processed food, fast food, sugar, western diets, etc. Not that
  • some random video on the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

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