China Faces New Urban Food Worry: Surplus, Not Shortage

BEIJING — Suddenly, there is a problem of too much and not too little. Chen Xuecun is worried.

For most of his long career as one of China’s leading nutritionists, Chen struggled with the chronic national problems of malnutrition and underweight children. But about five years ago, after China had recorded nearly a decade of double-digit economic growth, the professor at Beijing’s Institute of Nutrition and Food Hygiene began to notice a disturbing new trend: A growing percentage of elementary school children in the country’s major cities are obese.

A recent survey of students in eastern Beijing showed that nearly 10% are overweight for their height. Raised on a diet much richer in fat and protein than that of any generation this century, 6-year-olds are much taller--almost two inches, on average--than students of the same age 10 years ago. They are also heavier--by an average of 2.6 pounds.

Only a decade ago, less than 2% of children in China’s urban schools were overweight.

Studying the children’s diets, Chen discovered that many families had abandoned many inexpensive, traditional staples such as grains, beans and tofu and replaced them with red meat and deep-fried foods. Checking with hospitals, he discovered a rising rate of heart disease, which traditionally has been much lower in China than in Western countries.

In an article in China Youth Daily, Chen sounded the alarm. Parents and doting grandparents should stop pampering kids with frequent trips to the burgeoning array of fast-food franchises.

“Most foreign fast foods consist of lots of meat and few vegetables, and the cereals in them are too refined to retain vitamin B, which is very helpful for the development of children’s memories,” Chen said. “It’s OK to take your children out to buy fast food once or twice a month but not regularly.”

By the end of this year, Beijing will have more than 30 McDonald’s franchises as well as dozens of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut outlets. Chinese fast-food franchises, such as the Rong Hua Ji and Xiang Fei Ji fried chicken restaurants, compete with the American chains.

A new restaurant built on the eastern fringe of historic Tiananmen Square bears the Chinese name Kuai Can--literally, “fast food.”

A trip to the neighborhood fast-food restaurant has become a weekend routine for many of China’s emerging middle-class families. Even in the days before urban prosperity, Chinese families spent an extremely high percentage of their disposable income--nearly 50%--on food. Today, much of that money is being diverted from traditional Chinese restaurants to fast-food joints.

The problem is complicated by China’s strict “one-child family” population control policy. As a result of the policy, single children have two parents and four grandparents competing for their attention.

“Nowadays the children are little emperors,” complained Li Xianyun, 65, as she watched her 7-year-old granddaughter eating a fried apple pie at a McDonald’s in Shanghai. “She cried for McDonald’s. I could do nothing but take her here.”

Recognizing the “4-2-1” ratio created by the one-child policy, some of the more sophisticated fast-food franchises have incorporated it into their marketing strategies. Television commercials show grandparents hovering over hamburger-chomping grandchildren in fast-food settings.

The recent rise in child obesity has spawned an industry of weight-reduction schemes and tonics, many with dubious medical value.

One widely advertised product labeled Kangmeishen (God of Health and Beauty) promises to knock off up to 16 pounds after eight days of use.

Several Beijing hospitals now operate weight-reduction summer camps for children.

In his campaign against Western fast food, nutritionist Chen said the long-range solution is education of parents about the necessity of a balanced diet.

His institute recently published a volume of meal plans for school-age children featuring menus that include fish, green vegetables, rice, corn and millet--all traditional Chinese fare in less prosperous times.

Because the child obesity problem is concentrated primarily in major cities, China is faced with a nutrition problem on two fronts. In some rural areas, Chen said, there is relatively little incidence of obesity, but as much as 20% of children are underweight.

“Our country is still a developing country,” Chen said in an interview. “This creates two problems. In the cities, we need to educate the people how to reduce their weight. But in much of the countryside, we still need to teach people how to increase their weight. We now have two battles to fight, undernutrition and over-nutrition.”

Times researcher Bao Lei in Shanghai contributed to this report.