Obese Chinese feed weight-loss
industry By Candy Zeng
SHENZHEN - Benefiting from their country's
booming economy, better-off Chinese are putting on
weight, with obesity increasingly becoming a
problem in major cities and among the younger
generations. This has created a huge, fast-growing
and highly profitable weight-reduction industry
that is increasingly tempting domestic and foreign
investors.
According to a market research
report, sales of weight-reduction products totaled
10 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion) in 2004. This
market is expected to grow to 60 billion yuan by
2010. Even more encouraging, the average gross
profit of the weight-reducing products last year
reached 47%. Attracted by the huge market
potential and high profitability, more than 2,000
domestic and
foreign firms, large and
small, have invested in the manufacturing of
weight-loss products in China.
An official
survey last year on the nutrition and health
condition of Chinese people shows that one out of
five adults is overweight and one out of 10 obese.
Given the large population of the country, that
implies the number of overweight people may reach
200 million and the number of obese 90 million.
The problem is worse in urban areas; in major
Chinese cities, 30% of the total population is
overweight and 12.3% obese, up 39% and 97%
respectively compared with the same survey in
1992.
A recent seminar held in Beijing addressing
China's emerging obesity issue was told that
overweight people account for more than half of
the city's population, making the Chinese capital
one of fattest cities in the world.
However, some experts argue that this high
percentage may be inaccurate because the
definition of obesity used by Chinese health
authorities is more strict than the more commonly
used World Health Organization standard. Both
China and the WHO use body mass index (BMI) to
assess whether a person is overweight. BMI is a
person's weight in kilograms divided by his or her
height in meters squared. Under the WHO's
definition, a person whose BMI is above 25 is
considered overweight; the threshold for "obese"
is when the BMI is above 30. In China, however,
the benchmark for "overweight" is 24 and "obese"
28; these are considered more appropriate values
for Asians.
Chinese were regarded as one
of the most fit peoples worldwide in BMI terms as
recently as the 1980s, but widespread prosperity
and the spread of modernized transportation over
the past two decades have changed the picture,
sparking business opportunities as well as
concerns from medical experts.
Mermaid
Fitness Center, a Shenzhen-headquartered firm
using acupuncture and a traditional Chinese diet
to help clients lose weight, has rapidly swelled
into a 60-outlet chain in southern China since its
establishment in 1989. Now a 1,400-staffer company
with its own research institution, it owns centers
in a number of Pearl River Delta cities including
Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Zhongshan, along
with 18 in Shenzhen.
"People trust us
because they have faith in Chinese traditional
medicine," said the firm's vice president, Chen
Shuoli, adding that the next two years would be a
golden period for fitness clubs to expand since
the market potential is so huge.
His
company's customers include "extremely" obese
persons weighing more than 150 kilograms each,
those who put on weight because of menopause or
maternity, plump youngsters, and women looking for
a slim body. "The age of our customers varies from
seven to 70," said Chen.
With the approach
of the summer vacation period, weight-loss summer
camps have mushroomed in major cities such as
Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao and
Shenzhen.
Shanghai Physical Education
Institute has set up a weight-loss camp targeting
plump children nationwide. The one-month camp, to
be launched in mid-July, will cost 8,000 yuan
($1,000) per child. Despite the high price, its
sales team predicted the business would go well
because of its strong appeal to busy parents,
worried that their already overweight children
might gain even more weight during the summer
vacation.
Impulse Grand Health Co Ltd of
Qingdao, a sports-equipment manufacturer and gym
operator, will kick off its 18th and 19th
weight-loss camps in July, after having served
2,000 people from the whole nation in the previous
16 camps.
Another weight-loss camp in
Beijing, which will cost its participants as much
as 14,800 yuan per person, was co-founded by
Bodyworks Fitness Center and a China Central
Television (CCTV) health program. Held annually
and lasting 42 days, the camp is reported to have
attracted more than 5,000 people of all ages since
2002. According to Bodyworks, more than 50 tonnes
of human body fat has been collectively lost at
the camp.
In Shenzhen, where more than
12.5% of the city's 350,000 primary- and
high-school students are obese, Nanhua Primary
School has been running a weight-control project
in cooperation with the local health authority and
the WHO since 2003. "We are helping obese children
reduce and control [their weight], which may
benefit them for [life]," said Li Hui, a Shenzhen
municipal health bureau doctor overseeing the
weight-control project at the school. Li admitted
obesity was becoming a serious problem in primary
and high schools in major cities.
Some 100
overweight children, out of 1,300 students in the
school, were gathered together for additional
exercises after school with three teachers in
attendance. The teachers also work with parents to
design a balanced menu for the pupils. Chang
Xiaofang, the school doctor in charge of the
project, said it is often an arduous task to cut
even a gram of fat from some spoiled children.
"We have to educate their parents and even
grandparents [over and over] about the
side-effects of obesity. Some just ignored us,
treating their children at home with excessive
fish, meat and rice. They [think] the diet food
could starve their children," Chang said. Not
uncommonly, students will gain weight during a
long vacation, making all of the teachers' efforts
for the previous semester in vain, she said.
Her project, however, helped reduce the
percentage of obese students in her school from
11% in 2001 to 9.2% in 2004, winning a silver
award from the WHO last month.
Li
attributed the spiraling obesity rate of the
students to diet imbalance, a lack of exercise and
poor knowledge of nutrition. "Few Chinese
housewives can read the nutrition [labels] on [a]
food package. Some think [following a traditional
belief] that fat is healthy."
Unlike
developed countries where obesity is most common
in the low-income population, in China richer
people are more likely to put on weight, Li
commented. "It is the right time for Chinese to
take the weight problem seriously, [and] to equip
them with right common sense about [a] balanced
diet and nutrition, and [this will help] the
younger generation," she concluded.
Candy Zeng is a Shenzhen-based
freelancer.
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