A feature article in the latest Time magazine (March 27) talked about expanding waistlines, and the possible decline in the life expectancy of younger Americans in decades to come.

Debate centred on whether government anti-obesity programmes or even legislation would work, or whether fat people, and food corporations, should be the ones to address the problems.

Browsing Chinese news websites I came across similar stories, for instance, a story about expanding girths in Hong Kong, and photos of overweight people demonstrating their talents at a competition in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province. We could question the newsworthiness of these pictures, and whether the photographer respected these people's dignity, especially when it came to an obese woman in a yellow satin costume trying a full split.

Regardless, these photos sadly highlight the problem of obesity in China, which for a long time had been regarded as solely an American or European predicament.

As the economy keeps growing, most of us Chinese, especially urbanites, have seen our lives dramatically improved. National dietary surveys reveal that the average urban family's consumption of edible plant oil, pork, beef, mutton and fish approximately doubled between 1978 and 2003; while the amount of fresh eggs and poultry more than tripled.

By contrast, in the same period of time urbanites reduced their intake of grain almost by half and vegetables by more than one fourth. And fewer people cycle to work, while the number of private cars has dramatically increased.

No wonder two years ago some international scholars ranked China as the country with the 10th most serious obesity problem. Experts have calculated that more than 30 per cent of Chinese are overweight a large proportion of them children.

Americans and Europeans have been confronting the obesity issue for years, without marked improvement. This may explain why legislative efforts on this front have intensified in the United States, with the word obesity appearing in 56 bills introduced during the current US Congress.

I believe it is high time we learned lessons from the Americans and the Europeans and act early so we don't sink further into a morass. Serious obesity problems will lead to soaring medical bills, and will seriously harm both life and work. China cannot afford such a scenario as we have neither a sound medical care system nor a healthy social security net. We should start with adolescents and children, who represent our future.

Before I left Beijing for Iowa City to teach a short course on Chinese culture, I caught a TV news programme about a high school in Shanghai introducing extra exercise routines for its overweight students. One student claimed he had lost weight and gained self-respect after a year's additional jogging and other sports after class.

Some schools in Beijing are turning to food companies to prepare nutritious lunches and have stopped selling junk food.

While I applaud such measures, I also believe that the conventional school curriculum as a whole needs an overhaul for the benefit of all youth.

Students are so burdened with homework that they listen to music, play computer games and chat on the Internet during the few leisure hours they have. Unless they develop good exercise habits at a young age, children will be locked in a lifelong battle against the bulge.

Email: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/30/2006 page4)