Poor eyesight, obesity plague students

Cartoon by Chen Wen [http://cartoon.chinadaily.com.cn/]

BEIJING - China has seen a surge of poor eyesight and obesity cases among students aged between 7 to 22, according to results of a national survey issued Thursday.

More than 40 percent of primary school students and 84 percent of college students have poor eyesight in varying degrees, according to the survey jointly conducted by six government departments headed by the Ministry of Education.

The survey covered 348,495 students in 995 schools nationwide.

The proportions of shortsighted students at junior and senior high schools were 67.3 and 79.2 percent respectively.

The survey reported a growing number of shortsighted students at younger ages, citing that about 27 percent of seven-year-old rural girls have poor eyesight, up more than 10 percentage points compared with the figure in 2005. The situation for urban children and rural boys of seven years old also worsened similarly.

In addition, students aged between 7 to 22 experiencing obesity also increased from 2005, with 13.33 percent of urban male students having adiposity, up 1.94 percentage points from 2005.

The survey found that students' physical qualities, including strength and endurance, also deteriorated.

Meanwhile, the number of low-weight students and those suffering malnutrition was on the decline.