weighty issues

Global Times notes and others answer

The day before our election, I saw a story that merits a word as much because of its source GlobalTimes.com as its content. Global Times is a nationalist mouthpiece for the CCP. One can be certain that the Party supports airing this concern as Chinese media don’t have the type of autonomy to choose content traditional in western press outlets. The sourcing tells me Beijing is worried about—as I would argue it should be—this exploding problem for its society and health care costs. Remember that Xi Jinping’s China shapes messaging for both domestic and foreign audiences.

So, the Party is revealing a growing risk in their realm. The analysis “Obesity prevalence among Chinese adolescents surges from 0.10% to 8.25% in 34 years: study” is nothing short of astounding as a health indicator. The article acknowledges the dangers of this phenomenon in just about two generations and hints at state concerns about its implications. Specifically, the article comments on this trend occurring not merely in urban areas, which now predominant the country, but even in rural communities. There is no end in sight, either.

We know that obesity and overweight concerns are important in the west. Before you leap to the conclusion I am beating up on people who have trials and tribulations with weight, my own agonies date back decades. I, of all people, know how bloody hard, personally humiliating, and seemingly unwinnable the weight game is.

The reality of weight issues, from one perspective, is a manifestation of the joys and successes of our modern world. We, and the Chinese it now seems, live in an era of plenty—for which we have so much to be thankful, albeit not by eating another helping of French fries or several double-dipped Hostess snack cakes deep-fried. It’s been decades since most Americans worried about where they could scrounge the next meal, although areas of malnutrition and overnutrition remain too common.

China, however, is currently ruled by the generation remembering vividly the deprivations generated by famine. That horror occurred in the Middle Kingdom merely fifty years ago. Within the lifetimes of hundreds of millions, food was a commodity doggedly-pursued yet too often elusive. We in the United States sometimes still think of Chinese food as rice under goopy, calorie-laden sauces dressing a hunk of chicken but my trips to the Middle Kingdom over the years always surprised me by how many different variations there were in the cuisine yet always so many calories seemed derived from the cooking oils rather than protein or vegetables; I am sure I never saw any goopy sauces of any type we associate with their food.

The Global Times article is an acknowledgement that “there has been a global shift in the nutritional patterns of children and adolescents from predominantly undernutrition to predominantly overnutrition, a phenomenon closely related to socioeconomic development”. Today, beef, chicken, fish, bison and whatever else the world eats appears on tables in China, thanks to greater prosperity and global supply chains.

Who cares? We ought to because China’s acknowledgement appeared merely ten days ahead of our own weight statistics showing a burgeoning national burden (pun intended). This morning the New York Times reports “the dramatic increase in obesity rates nationwide since 1990”.

We know people are getting bigger as we see it in airplane seats, in doctors’s office waiting rooms where double-sized chairs are as common as traditional ones, or as we walk down the street. But we don’t always recognize the long-term implications. I am well aware of the “health at every size” (HAES) movement and a growing stanza by nutritionists that oppose commenting on the topic altogether. Criticizing anyone on weight is an off-limits activity in that it’s the individual’s decision on what he or she consumes. I do not dispute that, spiraling in personal anger every bloody time my mother raised an eyebrow as I had a cookie (definitely a passive aggressive family mine was).

But, health costs escalate for all of us with higher weights. That is empirical in terms of diabetes cases rising, needed knee/hip replacements accumulating, and other illnesses. The effects manifest in higher insurance premiums which we all pay whether through Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance. Nothing comes without a cost, folks. The increase in doctor’s visits escalates as well, despite time being money.

This problem for children is pernicious indeed. As more children become heavier, they get less exercise because it’s simply far less pleasant as an activity (been there for too long; I am a pro on this particular point though I now love walking). It also prevents kids from learning some of the skills we learn engaging with others in physical competitions. Probably more importantly, higher weight levels likely draw more kids to the darker aspects of spending time “on line” but that is speculative on my part.

What we do know is that weight is a contributing factor to the decline in people serving in the military, a place which brings the obesity/overweight topic back into alignment with concerns about China. More than one in every 10 youth between 17 and 24 years old is too heavy to serve as of 2022, no matter how patriotic or gung ho they may be, cannot qualify to enlist in the military. Coincident with that are other behavioral choices like drug or alcohol abuse raises those numbers further to undermine recruiting, as I have discussed in the past. But, the weight and health issues for someone serving in the armed forces pose problems of our expanding bodies when one needs hoist one’s body over an obstacle or cross a stream carrying gear. Going to war under those circumstances is tough for anyone, much less for those toting extra kilos or pounds around their middles, mean reassessing any unit’s ability to execute a mission; multiple that by several hundred thousand bodies.

China is bound to face precisely the same challenges but even worse. For whatever disappointments any of us feels about health care in this country, we have a robust system. It is generally available for all, although often not as instantaneously as we would all prefer. China is light years behind us on health care. Those with the financial resources—and there are millions of extraordinarily wealthy in the Middle Kingdom—can buy the best health care available anywhere in the world. But most in that country have far fewer financial resources, thus living in the nightmare of a decrepit health care options.

Expanding diabetes rates were a leading indicator several years ago as the Chinese medical community came to acknowledge. The treatment for obesity and its effects will be incredibly expensive long term as the same degenerative effects of carrying all of that extra weight becomes a nationwide norm.

China will also find recruiting for its military much harder than in the past. Not only will it find weight shrinks the pool, but China’s “one child” policy butts up against the tradition of perpetuating the family lineage, especially by sons, while also caring for aging parents without a retirement social safety net. These will be contradicting winds for a country increasingly relying on its military as an instrument of statecraft—and potentially continuation of the CCP rule.

I don’t have any brilliant answers to how we can solve this problem which is a failure on my part (GAO 101 from 1977: you have to offer a solution rather than merely identifying a problem). Weight is a notoriously complex system of hereditary factors, availability and consumption of calorie-dense tasty morsels, disincentives to burn more calories than we consume, and other things I am not even able to describe or don’t understand. The overwhelming evidence is that most people who lose weight gain it back unless they are so obsessed with monitoring each and every single morsel that enters their mouths as to make life rather tedious.

India already has one quarter of the world’s diabetics, the vast majority of whom get no treatment at all. China and the United States are merely two places where obesity and higher weights are notable: what will happen when the same inevitably occurs not just in India where diabetes rates have been climbing for years but also in Nigeria or Iran?

But the tale of plenty we see unfolding around the world, highlighted by our own experiences and those of China, are sobering and create massive financial and social effects. I didn’t even discuss the increase in consuming physical resources, such as carbon-based fuel in airplanes, as we move around. Physics matters even in overweight or obesity conversations. It also reminds us that actions and consequences from seemingly unlinked phenomena such as climate change and weight can do in fact home connections. These serious topics seem concentrated in those areas least able to afford to find solutions.

You want a context where I imagine real suffering for those heavily overweight? Look at temperatures, humidity and the heat index rising in an on-going pattern in Guangzhou on the Pearl River in southern China in July (you can substitute New Delhi for Guangzhou if you prefer). Temperatures rarely nip below 100 degrees Fahrenheit at dawn, much less during the hottest portion of the day. Being heavy means it’s so much harder to cool the body. As global warming increases, Guangzhous are constants in South Asia and the Persian Gulf, the circum-Caribbean, the southern tier of the United States, and ever more frequently in traditionally more remote locations like Spain or France. Many of those locations will never be able to afford air-conditioning, etiher.

Today’s column is a tale yet again on actions and consequences not necessarily supporting our analyses straight-lining global winners and losers. China and other nations have their own challenges which mean they cannot predict the future with utter certainty. This won’t, of course, make us feel entirely better but it most definitely is a gentle suggestion that we address on our challenges while keeping our eye on those of others to assure we don’t race to the bottom in tandem with the Chinese or anyone else.

I welcome any feedback. Please feel free to circulate this. Thank you for reading this or any other topic I publish.

I wish you a safe, restful weekend. It’s a privilege to see the autumn, even as the leaves scatter to present a more bleak landscape. Seasons come and seasons go. Be well and be safe. FIN

Nina Agrawal, “Three-Quarters of U.S. Adults are Now Overweight or Obese”, NewYorkTimes.com, 14 November 2024, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/well/obesity-epidemic-america.html

APB News Bureau, “India Accounts for 25% of Adults with Diabetes, Over 70% Without Treatment, Lancet’s Study Alarming Findings ”, msn.com , 14 November 2024, retrieved at https://www.msn.com/en-in/health/other/india-accounts-for-25-of-adults-with-diabetes-over-70-without-treatment-lancet-study-s-alarming-findings/ar-AA1u2EX2

Thomas Novelly, “Even More Young Americans Are Unfit To Serve“, military.com, 28 September 2022, retrieved at https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/28/new-pentagon-study-shows-77-of-young-americans-are-ineligible-military-service.html

Leng Shumei, “Obesity prevalence among Chinese adolescents surges from 0.10% to 8.25% in 34 years: study”, GlobalTimes.com, 29 October 2024, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202410/1322066.sthml

Erin Tompkins, “Obesity in the United States and Effects on Military Recruiting”, CRSreports.congress.gov, 22 December 2020, retrieved at https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11708/3

Rob V., “How to join the military if you’re overweight”, OperationMilitaryKids.org, 19 June 2024, retrieved at https://www.operationmilitarykids.org/how-to-join-the-military-if-youre-overweight/