Chinese Parents Must Face Up to Child Obesity Issue

In the past, most Chinese parents used to consider childhood obesity as a Western problem. But China has been forced to face the problem in the past few years, with statistics now showing that rates of certain youth diseases caused by obesity have surpassed those in the United States.

The International Association for the Study of Obesity recently published a study that found that more than 12 percent of Chinese children are overweight and one-third of children under 17 suffer from at least one cardiovascular risk factor, including 1.9 percent of China's 12-18 year olds suffering from diabetes, four times the number of their peers of the same age group in America.