Ten-year-old Chang Tai is always hungry. The little fellow
particularly enjoys wolfing down pork, chicken legs, and
hamburgers. He already weighs 50 kilograms, almost 15 kilograms
heavier than most boys of his age and height, and his weight
problem is shattering his confidence.
During Physical Education lessons he always finishes last in
running and jumping races. He says fellow students frequently jeer
him in the schoolyard and even adults turn their heads when he
walks down the street. Young Chang is not alone.
Obesity has become a rapidly growing social and medical problem
across China, especially in the cities, and groundbreaking research
has revealed that overeating is not the only cause.
|
|
|
Some obese children take
part in a weight loss workout program in Hefei, Anhui
Province.
|
"Diet and lifestyle are only the external reasons," said Guo
Xirong, director of Nanjing Institute for Pediatrics affiliated to
Nanjing Medical College. "The genetic conditions of the individuals
could predispose or even cause children and adolescents to become
overweight or obese."
Guo won the Soong Ching Ling Foundation Pediatrics Award last
week for his pioneering research in identifying five new genes
related to obesity and suggesting new intervention strategies for
obesity.
International researchers have found more than 200 genes related
to obesity since the 1980s, when scientists recognized obesity had
a mix of environment and the hereditary causes. For example, the
presence of obesity in one parent significantly increased the risk
of obesity.
In their five-year clinical study, Guo and his colleagues also
proved that the tea Polyphenols and calcium were helpful for weight
control.
Despite their findings, Guo admits there is no magic bullet for
treating childhood obesity. But he suggested the best slimming
strategies are a healthier diet and lifestyle.
Interestingly, the studies conducted by Guo and his colleagues
show that many overweight or obese children did not eat more food
than their thin similarly aged counterparts. However their diets
had a much higher intake of fat and carbohydrates.
According to Guo, too much sleep or a lack of sleep both
contribute to obesity because an endocrine disorder follows an
abnormal sleep pattern.
Food is a pleasure for obese children and can become addictive.
Distracting their attention from the food on the table could help
control the amount of food intake each meal time, suggested
Guo.
According to Guo, the seeds of obesity can be planted in
children much earlier than people expected.
When children are still in the fetus stage, they tend to become
obese later in their life if pregnant mothers eat too much and have
a dramatic increase in body weight.
Compared to the bottle-fed infants, infants who are breastfed
tend to be less likely to become obese later in their life, because
the secretion of breast milk is limited everyday while
bottle-feeding babies tend to develop a larger appetite as they
would be fed each time they cry.
Professor Ji Chengye, director of the Institute of Child and
Adolescent Health Medical Center with Peking University, said the
obesity rate among children and adolescents in Beijing, Shanghai
and other big cities had already caught up with those in developed
countries.
A 2005 survey showed that 20.8 percent of male students aged
between 7 and 18 were overweight and 12.3 percent were obese.
Comparatively, the statistics for female students were 11.3 percent
and 6.6 percent respectively.
Today, many children have developed the daily habit of eating
snacks. More than 30 percent of these snacks are junk foods with
high calories, high fat and high protein, according to the survey
conducted by Ji's institute.
The popularity of fast-food restaurants is also contributing to
obesity problem among children. According to another institute
survey, about 85 percent of children regarded KFC and McDonald's as
good places to eat. About 47 percent of the group ate at these
fast-food chains every month and about six percent visited these
outlets daily or weekly.
Excessive consumption of soft drink was also quite an evident
phenomenon among children, according to the institute's survey.
Many children and parents tend to consider soft drink as more
nutritious than boiled water. "In fact, soft drink provides little
nutrients to the bodies but only excessive calories," said Ji.
The sedentary lifestyle of China's next generation is not
helping. On one hand, children have consumed more calories than
they need and on the other hand more youngsters are spending too
much time watching television or playing computer games.
While the media and public health experts identify undue
absorption of nutrients and lack of exercise as the major culprits
for obesity, researchers say the reasons for obesity are much more
complex.
(China Daily June 6, 2007)
