Chinese people becoming taller and fatter: Survey

Chinese people are growing taller, thanks to their deeper pockets and better nutrition diets, but the change of diet is also making people overweight and even obese, a government survey has warned.
The proportion of overweight adults has increased by 32 per cent and obese adults by 67 per cent since 2002 when China first released a report on citizens' nutrition and health, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said.
The survey found that adult obesity rates reached 9.6 per cent in 2012, more than doubling in a decade, while percentage of overweight adults went up from 7.1 to 11.9 per cent.

The statistics for children six to 17 years old are even more alarming, with the number of overweight kids doubling and obese children tripling from 2.1 per cent to 6.4 per cent.
Zhao Wenhua, deputy director of the Nutrition and Health Institution of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the increase during the time was larger than that in the industrial world in general, state-run China Daily reported.
In 2012, the average height for men was 167.1 cm and for women 155.8 cm, a slight increase over 2002, but they are still slightly shorter than their neighbors in Japan and South Korea, said Liang Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Chinese CDC.

In comparison, the average height in Netherlands -- the world's tallest nation -- is 184 centimetres for males and 171 centimetres for females.

Children from six to 17 years old recorded even more significant growth in their heights. In urban areas, boys were an average 2.3 cm taller while girls were on average 1.8 cm taller. Their rural counterparts grew 4.1 cm and 3.5 cm, respectively.
The data, compiled from a sampling of nearly 200,000 Chinese, also found that nutrition had generally improved in the decade between 2002 and 2012 with ample intake of protein, fat and carbohydrate, but the consumption of cooking oil and animal food, mostly fatty pork, has also risen substantially in the past 10 years, giving rise to numerous diseases.

Chronic problems such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and lung disease account for more than 80 per cent of deaths on the mainland China and are closely linked to lifestyle, including smoking and poor diet. The global average is 63 per cent.