Establishing scientific and rational food consumption initiative
is an urgent mission in China to deal with nutritional deficiencies
and imbalances across the nation, said Zhao Lin, the Ministry of
Health's chief nutrition expert.
He also emphasized the importance of raising awareness of
nutrition and popularizing nutritional knowledge among government
officials and the public.
He made the remarks this week at a symposium on a survey of the
nutritional and health of status among Chinese. The survey was
released on October 12.
The report shows that nutrition and health problems still haunt
most Chinese people.
Irrational diets, deficiencies in micro-nutrients such as
iodine, iron and vitamins have become a nationwide problem and a
vast number of people suffer from sub-standard health.
The report also notes incidents of chronic diseases have seen a
sharp rise in some remote regions of the country.
With nearly 720 million people living in the iodine-poor
regions, China is among the worst hit countries from diseases
caused by a lack of iodine.
According to a survey conducted by the National Statistics
Bureau, malnutrition caused by deficiency of micro-nutrients
results in a loss of 30 billion yuan (US$3.61 billion) annually,
accounting for 3-4 percent of the gross domestic product.
"Public nutrition has a great bearing on population quality,
economic development and social progress," said Ye Lei, from the US
Centers for Prevention and Disease Control.
Ye also said that China's nutrition structure is much more
complicated than that of Western countries.
For instance, the problem of nutritional surpluses is serious in
Beijing, Shanghai and some coastal cities while impaired
nourishment is rampant in some poverty-stricken regions.
More and more overweight youths and the mushrooming of all kinds
of weight-reduction centres have become a spectacle in urban areas
of China.
Some experts point out that expansions of fast food chains are
partially responsible for the trend.
"The popularization of Western fast food and lifestyles not only
should be blamed for jeopardizing people's health, but also has
great impacts on the development of traditional Chinese foods and
diets," Zhao said.
"Most of the citizens do not have a clear concept on a healthy
and balanced diets," said Bao Shanfen, a researcher at the Chinese
PLA General Hospital. He carried out an investigation of people's
diet in six districts of Beijing, finding that many families
overuse cooking oil and salt, with some taking in as much as 13 to
15 grams of salt a day.
And experts warned that large inflow of these things can lead to
hypertension or some other chronic diseases.
"Taking some mandatory measures in nutrition replenishment may
be an effective way to improve Chinese public nutrition
conditions," said Zhou Haichun, professor from the Center for
Public Nutrition and Development of China, suggesting adding
additional nutrition to some most important food such as flour.
"The country should also draft a long-term development plan in
accordance with the national conditions and promulgate
corresponding regulations and policies to change the status quo as
soon as possible," Zhou said.
For example, the quality and safety of additive in the flour
should be brought under close surveillance to benefit the utmost
number of people.
"We should try our best to ensure those who are in urgent need
get what they need," Zhou said.
An old Chinese proverb says a simple diet with vegetables and
bean curd can offer a person a healthy life.
Most experts favor the traditional diet structure which has
relied mainly on vegetables for thousands of years.
(China Daily November 13, 2004)