Chinese children are 8 centimeters taller than they were 40 years ago

[yuiyoshida]

Obviously, as Wang Yi would point out, things have improved a great deal in China in the past four decades, you can even tell by looking at how tall the kids are these days.

Every 10 years since 1975, Chinese health authorities have surveyed the heights and weights of kids under seven years old. The most recent study was completed last year and confirms what parents have been thinking -- these kids are growing like weeds! At least comparatively speaking.

In the 2015 survey, the National Health and Family Planning Commission found that boys aged 5 to 5.5 years old measured on average 113.6 cm, that's 1.7 cm taller than in 2005 and a whopping 8 cm taller than in 1975. Same result for the girls of the same age, who recently measured on average 112.5 cm, 1.8 cm taller than in 2005 and 8.2 cm taller than in 1975, Xinhua reports.

These figures surpass the child growth standards set by the World Health Organization. Congrats, China!

Of course, kids in China aren't just growing up, they are growing out. Boys and girls respectively weigh 3.7 and 3.28 kilograms more than their counterparts 40 years ago. While, of course, having malnourished kids is awful, Chinese authorities also fear they may have gone too much the other way. According to a recently-published 29-year-long study, childhood obesity rates are exploding in rural China (thanks to junk food from the West), helping China to surpass the US as the country with the most obese people in the world.

http://shanghaiist.com/2016/06/09/chinese_children_8_cm_taller.php

[bemildred]

1. Plenty of good food will do that. nt

[Nye Bevan]

2. Switching from communism to capitalism can work wonders (nt)

[KansDem]

5. They're also putting on weight...

Beijing (AFP) - Chinese people are growing taller as the country becomes richer but they are getting fatter even faster, the government said.

Adult obesity rates reached 9.6 percent in 2012, more than doubling over a decade, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said in a report on national nutrition and chronic diseases. Those who were overweight went from 7.1 percent to 11.9 percent.

Among six to 17-year-olds the obesity increase was even more dramatic, more than tripling from 2.1 percent to 6.4 percent, while the proportion overweight went up by almost a third, to 30.1 percent.

"The problem of overweight and obesity is rising sharply as the dietary make-up has changed," Wang Guoqiang, a vice director of commission, told a press conference.

The average Chinese man weighed 66.2 kilograms (146 pounds) in 2012, extracts from the document posted online by the commission showed, up 3.5 kilograms over 10 years.

Women were 2.9 kilograms heavier on average at 57.3 kilograms.

--more--
Yahoo news

Next up: Healthcare costs skyrocket as CEOs pull in millions of dollars.



Kapitalismus works wonders.

[think]

10. Reality is much more complex than flag waving fodder....

[missingthebigdog]

3. I, too, have grown a lot in the last 40 years.

[Major Nikon]

4. I would never have guessed they were that old

[dembotoz]

6. from what i understand similar growth spurts were seen in the us earlier

[deaniac21]

7. That's because they are 40 years older

[yuiyoshida]

8. I hope I look that good

at 40. Maybe if I keep using the Ancient Chinese secret
(shhhh)

[First Speaker]

9. The increasing prosperity in China, and the growth of its middle class...

...may be the single greatest development ever to happen to the human race, when you consider the sheer numbers of people it involves, over a relatively short span. Mao is dead, and good riddance. Deng was probably the most important single human being of the 20th century. I hope these kids grow to all be the size of Yao Ming...LOL...

[Hassin Bin Sober]

11. Does this mean I no longer have to eat my green beans?

[LeftyMom]

12. Nutrition aside, wasn't the one child policy more lenient for ethnic minorities and rural people?

It makes sense that they'd get bigger for that reason alone: a lot of those ethnic minorities are significantly larger people than the Han majority.

I also wonder about cooking the books? It seems like China does it for *everything*, and some of the provinces are reporting a higher average adult height than Germany, which seems unlikely.