Ever seen the lackluster performance of China’s students performing their morning exercises? The poor dears are limp from late-night study sessions.
Well, beginning in mid-October, Chinese students have been required, by new government regulation, to add some distance to their morning runs – 2,000 meters for high school students, 1,500 meters for those in junior high and 1,000 meters for elementary school kids. Also in October, the Ministry of Health publicly recommended citizens take at least 6,000 steps every day. The efforts are part of a growing concern about Chinese obesity.
As China’s diet changes in sync with its newly achieved wealth, more than a quarter of China’s adult population is overweight or obese, and, among developing nations, China’s rate of increase in overweight adults is only second to Mexico, says a report published in the July/August edition of the journal Health Affairs. Figures from the Ministry of Education also reveal among 11- to 12-year-old urban children, 8.1 percent are obese and 15 percent are overweight. Since the early ‘90s, the number of fat children has doubled every five years. Cases of diabetes and heart disease have likewise exploded.
Leave a Reply