China's children told to fight flab with dance

Fat may be a feminist issue, but it's also one communists have to deal with. Enter the waltz, which is seen as a quick-quick-slow solution to an alarming rise in obesity among Chinese schoolchildren and is about to make its way on to the school curriculum.

Obesity is a new problem for China. Chinese children are traditionally slim and active, raised on diets of rice, fish and vegetables. The only sweets on offer were White Rabbits, small chewy sweets dispensed rarely to reward good behaviour.

These days, China's waistbands are being stretched as the country's economy grows by double-digit percentages every year, translating into poor dietary habits. The China Daily quoted a Ministry of Education notice saying that seven sets of dance steps had been designed to "suit the physical and psychological characteristics of students at different ages". One of the measures involves boys and girls in senior high schools learning the waltz.

"Each dance set lasts four to five minutes, and will be performed during class breaks or in extra-curricular time. They will not replace the physical exercise course," said the China Daily. Videos of the first routine will be sent to provincial education departments, and teachers will be required to learn the dances. To keep things varied, the ministry plans to bring out new sets every two years.

While most of China remains mired in miserable poverty and still has barely enough to eat, economic growth in the eastern seaboard and Beijing has given rise to porkier children and teenagers. The one-child policy, which restricts the number of offspring born to a family, has created a lot of spoilt children who gorge themselves on burgers and chips. Eating in Western fast-food restaurants, which are relatively expensive in China, is also a way of letting people know that you have money to spend.

There has been a rise in the number of fat farms where obese children are put through military-style training to get them to shed the pounds. Famines have happened in living memory and the belief that a fat child is a healthy one is common, leading to more obese children in school playgrounds. Students' height, weight and chest measurements are going up but lung capacity, speed and strength, are going down. Boys, more treasured than girls, often suffer most from being overweight, as the older generation stuffs them with sweets and meat in the hope that a fat boy will later turn into a tall man. A recent national survey suggested at least a quarter of Chian's urban boys are overweight.

Nutrition experts believe that 60 million Chinese are obese, and the problem is getting worse. And China's schools require children to do huge amounts of homework and extra-curricular grinds to cover the areas they need for exams.

Zhou Ji, the Education minister, is aware of the growing obesity epidemic and wants all schools to ensure that students have one hour of physical exercise every day. Wang Wenrong, of the Guangxi Normal College, told the China Daily: "Group dancing will help cultivate students' social graces and sense of collectivism." There has been a big rise in blogs which promote weight loss competitions, where teenagers around the country compete to see who can lose the most weight fastest.

Statistics show about 160 million Chinese have high blood pressure and 20 million have Type 2 diabetes, which is expected to become a major killer.

Obesity in the developing world

Once a scourge of the developed world, childhood obesity is now an increasing problem in poorer countries, particularly where economic growth is strong.

The two developing nations hit hardest by childhood obesity are China and India, both of which have been overwhelmed by a huge rise in the number of children suffering from diabetes. By 2010, one in five Chinese children will be overweight and currently, 17 per cent of Indian children are classified as obese.

A report last year by the International Obesity Taskforce said that Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Egypt have childhood obesity rates comparable to fully industrialised nations.

Interesting? Click here to explore further