Obesity in China, particularly in children, has become an important health concern that will seriously affect the health of future generations but also place a heavy economic burden on the country. While China's GDP increased from $2.75 trillion in 2005 to $4.99 trillion in 2009, the number of obese people increased from 18 million to 100 million people, more than five times that amount, during the same period. "China has entered the era of obesity," Ji Chengye, a leading child-health researcher, told USA Today.
In addition, to make the situation even more serious, China, as well as Vietnam, India and many other developing countries, has to shoulder a "double burden" — the persistence of undernutrition, particularly among children in rural areas, and a rapid rise in obesity and related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, Type II diabetes and certain forms of cancer.
"What we are seeing in developing countries undergoing rapid economic transition is undernutrition, overnutrition and infectious and chronic diseases coexisting over long periods of time," stated Gina Kennedy of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.