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- SPOTLIGHT
- 22 June 2023
By the numbers: China’s changing diet
Data show that the Chinese middle class is eating a higher-fat, less-healthy diet — a trend reflected in the increases in heart disease and childhood obesity.“Over the past 40–50 years, the population’s overall nutritional intake has increased,” says Lijing Yan, a global-health researcher at Duke Kunshan University near Suzhou, China. “The consumption of meat, oil and sugar increased, and the trend is similar for both urban and rural residents,” she says.
Dietary components
Chinese people are consuming significantly more meat than they did 30 years ago. It is estimated that the average rural person ate about 12 kilograms of meat in 1990, a figure that had more than tripled by 2021. Over the past 30 years, both urban and rural households saw a reduction in overall grain consumption — of 35% in rural communities and 4.5% in urban ones — as other foods became more prominent (see ‘A changing plate’).Childhood obesity
China has one of the highest proportions worldwide of overweight and obesity among children under five. About 8.3% of people of this age group in China — roughly 5 million children — were overweight or obese in 2020, and the proportion is still rising. The figure is greater than in countries such as Brazil (7.3%) but slightly smaller than in the United States, where the proportion is 8.8%. The global figure is 5.7% (see ‘Growing pains’).
By the numbers: China’s changing diet
Data show that the Chinese middle class is eating a higher-fat, less-healthy diet — a trend reflected in the increases in heart disease and childhood obesity.
www.nature.com
How Chummy Are Junk Food Giants and China’s Health Officials? They Share Offices
How Chummy Are Junk Food Giants and China’s Health Officials? They Share Offices (Published 2019)
A life sciences institute funded by Coca-Cola and other multinational beverage and snack companies even has offices inside the government’s health ministry.
One has only to look at the problem of obesity, diabetes and other diseases that can be triggered by an unhealthy diet to know where poor nutrition can lead. And it's not just children we are talking about.
According to the dietary guidelines issued by the Chinese Nutrition Society last April, Chinese people are catching up with the developed world in terms of obesity. Its report said about half of all Chinese adults are overweight, with 16 percent obese. And nearly a fifth of school children between six and 17 are considered overweight or obese.
One wonders why junk food advertising should be allowed at all.
However, the problem is not just the advertisers; the problem is also us. Too many people prefer the taste and convenience of processed foods.
"Fast food is convenient, hygienic and standardized," said a woman in her late 40s. "When I travel, I prefer junk food. My only objection is that you probably have to gobble it down in haste, ignoring your manners."
With most fast-food joints and franchises, you don't need to worry about hygiene in the kitchen because there is often no kitchen to speak of.
The debate about junk-food advertising raises another issue. If it were banned and the choice of diet were left to parents, would those who have grown up on junk food themselves know anything about nutrition for their children?
Before China's accelerated economic development in the mid-1980s, people didn't have much disposable income, and the fast-food industry didn't exist. Diets were generally healthy, with emphasis on fresh fruit and vegetables.
But the processed-food industry spotted the market potential.
We are what we eat. That's the problem. Junk food trumps nutrition
www.shanghai.gov.cn
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