Buddha belly now a sign of obesity as much as wealth
Aileen McCabe
CanWest News Service
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
CREDIT: Associated Press
Traditional street-side noodles are giving way to fast food, and China's new-found wealth is creating problems for health. The WHO estimates 5% of China's 1.3-billion population is obese (about 65 million people), double the figure from 1992.
BEIJING - Chinese President Hu Jintao's dinner with Bill Gates in Seattle this spring made news in China, but not for the obvious reason that he broke bread with the Microsoft chairman before he paid a courtesy call on the U.S. president.
Nobody was the least bit concerned about that stretch of protocol. What amazed the Chinese media was that one of the richest men in the world would offer Hu only a spartan three-course meal.
Reverse the situation, many reporters pointed out, and a Chinese magnate would have served at least a dozen dishes and might easily have set out two dozen if he really wanted to impress.
It is the traditional Chinese way of demonstrating wealth.
This is a society where, until recently, a Buddha belly was a sign of prosperity, not of obesity.
But like many things in a China rapidly moving from its proletarian roots to economic superstar status, it is now a sign of the brave new world ahead.
The World Health Organization estimates about five per cent of China's 1.3-billion population is obese, about 65 million people. That's double what it was in 1992 and it is escalating fast, particularly among city dwellers and children.
Fuelling the obesity problem is the "westernization" of the country's diet, another offshoot of the increased wealth that is trickling down through the population. Also to blame is the one-child policy the Chinese government maintains in its effort to keep population numbers in check.
The evidence is in places like McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, both of which have become the places to go in China's capital.
The hamburgers, deep-fried chicken, soggy coleslaw and fries have a cachet that Chinese teens don't seem to find at the hundreds of thousands of local restaurants that dot every street and alleyway of the city.
You rarely see their parents or grandparents eating at the fast-food chains popping up in China's main cities. Their coddled "only" children have pocket money to spare on such treats; they do not. Even on the run, the "elders" stick to cheap Chinese food, even if it is just the baked sweet potatoes for sale on every street corner in Beijing.
"People above 40 years don't eat in fast-food restaurants, maybe once a year," says Ren De Feng, head chef at Shanghai's Classical Hotel restaurant.
Bian Jiang, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Cuisine Association, calls China's changing eating habits "one of the toughest problems we are facing now."
"In the cities, there are fewer and fewer people who cook at home," Bian laments. "We did a survey on people who are working, at least 90 per cent of them have two of their meals outside their home each day. Their children don't even want to learn to cook.
"We are very worried that there will be no followers of our cuisine skills."
Over jasmine tea in his crowded Beijing office, Bian adds: "When people start to dine out, they seldom have self-control. Now that people here have passed the period when eating was about keeping body and soul together, their desire for eating is huge.
"And people will only pay attention to food that they think is delicious. They consider heavy meat and fish are delicious so they eat a lot of them. Now there are a lot of fat people."
The eating-out trend is so well established the restaurant industry is enjoying unprecedented growth in China. Bian says it generates $120.5 billion for the economy now and that it is growing at approximately 15 per cent a year. Experts expect the rapid growth to continue for at least another decade.
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