In ‘Weighing In: Why Waistlines are Widening in China’s Biggest Cities,’ our February 2021 cover story, we address how China’s economic prosperity has beefed up its people and what can be done to slim it down.
Wealth and waistlines have a tendency to grow together. China’s rapidly developing economy has helped raise the standard of living to meteoric heights in recent decades. And while people in the Middle Kingdom are now wealthier, their diets have become ‘richer’ but not better. The country’s leading health authority drew attention to the elephant on the scale in a report released last December, revealing that more than half (50.7%) of Chinese adults were now overweight – a 27% increase since 2002.