Rising prosperity producing expanding waistlines in China

[marmar]

from Bloomberg:



Obesity in China Doubled in 11 Years With Rising Prosperity

By Cristina Alesci

July 8 (Bloomberg) -- Waistlines in China are expanding faster than almost anywhere else, with nearly a quarter of residents in the Earth's most populous nation now overweight, according to a study.

Obesity among China's 1.3 billion people doubled among women and tripled in men from 1989 to 2000, according to a study published today in the journal Health Affairs. China's rising prosperity, which allows more people to afford meat, dairy foods, vegetable oils and sedentary living, is fueling the growth, the study said.

The number of obese and overweight people in China, now at 325 million, could double in 20 years, spurring more diabetes and heart disease in what was once one of the world's leanest populations, said Barry Popkin, the study author and a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It also could be a boon for drugmakers, said Ray Hill, an analyst with IMS Health Inc., a health-care research company.

China ``has the highest growth rate for pharmaceutical sales than anywhere in the world,'' said Hill in a July 6 telephone interview. China was the world's ninth-largest pharmaceutical market two years ago and will be the fifth- largest by 2012, he said.

The study collected data on 20,000 people in China over the last 15 years and found that participants are eating more energy-dense foods, which have higher saturated fats and calories than vegetables and carbohydrates, said Popkin. At the same time, activity levels are dropping with more white-collar and manufacturing jobs, leaving China with the same caloric imbalance afflicting many Western countries: people eating more food and burning fewer calories.

Deaths from heart disease and cancer linked to diet have climbed 20 percent since 1985, according to Popkin's research. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aD1hgKQESbCc&refer=home

[Submariner]

1. The nuns used to tell me to eat all my peas and think of the starving

children in China. I wonder what con job Sister Perpetual Agony is making about peas nowadays.

[Zynx]

2. An irresponsible program of reckless expansion results in reckless personal behavior too.

Just like this country. Irresponsibility is a collective cultural issue in any country where it is pervasive. It filters into all segments of behavior.