Shanghai hospital, The International Peace Maternity and Child Health (IPMCH) is teaming up with The Canadian Institute of Health Research, to address one of China's current key issues: childhood obesity.
Under a new five-year program, research by the IPMCH will investigate child obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular and other non-communicable diseases in order to help the community, familes and children in China’s health system.
But this is not the first time there's been a mentioning of China's children's weight gain. In 2012, we reported on how new 'fat camps' were aiming to tackle China's obesity problems.
The number of obese Chinese teenagers aged between 7 and 18 has boomed since 1985, Shanghai Daily reported. In 2000, roughly 11.7 percent of boys and 6.8 percent of girls were found to be overweight or obese, 15 years later, that statistic has risen 19.5 times and 7.6 times respectively. Quite a hefty change.
Leader of the program, Huang Hefeng said, “Many researchers have found that nutrition in infant period, environmental pollution and gender also have a big influence on occurrence of children’s overweightness and obesity.”
[Image via South China Morning Post]
