This doesn't pass the smell test. China had 1 billion people in 1982. In 1985, obesity rates among children were 0.03% for boys and 0.12% for girls. They were able to produce enough food to feed 1 billion people in the 1980s, but there were nowhere near as many obese people. Within the time period of your stats (obesity rates up ~2.5x since the 00s), China's population has grown from 1.3B to 1.386B, basically a negligible increase.
A more likely explanation is that the arrival of cars, fast food, and a middle-class lifestyle is making Chinese people obese, just as it's making Americans obese. Studies show a direct correlation between obesity rates and rates of car ownership in China.
I don't question any of your data or even your conclusion, but do you really think WHITE-COLLAR workers having diabetes is a proof of " food is low quality empty calories"?
To me, it's more about the fact that lots of young people (or people in general) in urban area have poor lifestyle. Barely has anything to do with the lack of food quality or nutrition.
And I highly doubt this phenomenon is unique to China.
Right. As a certified nutritionist and soon to be registered dietitian, I can be serious. :-) Diabetes or hypertension are not that much related to the lifestyle. Not as much as fitness industry wants you to think. Besides being highly genetic, diabetes is also dependent on availability of simple carbs, in case of China, is white rice of which average Chinese person eats 320g per day.
I think you still missed the point. I'm not arguing with your conclusion, but the way you "prove" it.
Keep in mind the topic is "how is China able to provide enough food for 1.4 billion people", which implies they must have some efficient or cheap way. And I'd agree "rice" probably is one of the reason.
However, you firstly used "Shanghai's white-collar" as an example, which is the least representative group for this topic (because how cheap the food is is less of a concern for the high-income groups).
You also mentioned obesity, which only dramatically increases when China got richer. Again, totally irrelevant to the topic. If anything, Chinese people probably eat less rice now due to the increase of variety.
Does that necessarily mean that the food is low quality or just that there are more options and many are considerably unhealthier than the more traditional options (eg. more processed foods easily available now than in the past)
That's because: (1) it's rich in toxins due to the industrial processing and (2) it has a poor proteins/nutrients to energy ratio.
Nutrient hunger is a thing. Proteins are regulated by the brain. Micro nutrients might be regulated by the brain as well. When you eat ultra-processed food, you end up eating more food just to get the nutrients you need to live.
Ultra-processed food is also rich in calories, often being high in carbs and high in fat at the same time, a very unnatural combination that floods the brain with dopamine, making you overeat and crave for more.
None of what you or the other comment say prove the claim that China (or Mexico) offer such limited nutritional choices that they are the cause of those health conditions, as opposed to unconstrained individual choice.
I'm not talking about China. I was just making an observation that "low quality food" is ultra-processed food. So if the Chinese are now eating ultra-processed food, like many of us in the US or Europe, then it's no wonder that obesity and diabetes is on the rise.
> "as opposed to unconstrained individual choice"
There's no such thing, you're not aware of many of the recent findings.
What toxins are these and why are they bad? The liver is quite capable at removing actual toxins and using that terminology makes you sound like a quack.
(2) is a valid point, but (1) should be entirely prevented by the FDA.
Many additives and colorants used in US food are banned in Europe for example. I wouldn't go as far as to call them toxins but they're at the very least suspected to be a net negative for the human body.
But again à lot of it is a question of dosage. A bottle of coke a week might not do much, a bottle a day and it's a whole other story.
All the things in their air and water (Quote from the article: "Wen Jiabao, a former prime minister, once said that water problems threaten “the very survival of the Chinese nation”.".
more than 1/3 of Americans are obese. the US is one of the fattest countries in the world. Does that mean Americans are poor people who can only afford empty calories?
wake up. people just like to eat unhealthy stuff when given the chance?.
>Does that mean Americans are poor people who can only afford empty calories?
I don't know if it's because they can't afford better or don't want to eat better, but in the US there is a considerable relationship between income/education and obesity. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to be obese. 50% of the US makes less than $30k a year, and that group probably amounts to somewhere around 75% of the obese people.
I don’t think the difference is due to income directly, but more to do with class/social expectations. Eating is a very social activity, and the way people eat is strongly linked to their individual and group identity.
Healthy eating simply isn’t prioritized by some people/groups, and others don’t value it at all.
Obesity and many of those issues don’t really have much to do with food quality. A lot of it is due to nothing more than overeating.
Going to China and eating with Chinese people, it’s a very easy thing to do. Chinese food portions can sometimes make American food portions look downright tiny—and a lot of it is colossal chunks of meat with vegetables.
- In Shanghai 96% white-collar workers have at least one disease of the "food triad" (diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension), up from ~80% in 00's.
- In Beijing 26% of the whole population is overweight or obese, up from 11% in 00's.
- China has the largest percentage of obese children in the World, only competing with Mexico.
So there is enough food, but this food is low quality empty calories to "feed" 1B people, not nourish them.