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By Matthew Rees

Food and Health Fact #80: Wealth and weight gain in China

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As the Chinese people have grown much wealthier over the past 40 years – with average annual per capita incomes rising from $1,700 in 1980 to $10,800 in 2019 – they've also grown much heavier. The share of the adult population that’s overweight increased from 5.4 percent in 1982 to 34.3 percent in 2019. During the same period, the obesity rate increased from 0.1 percent to 16.4 percent. The authors of a new Lancet article about obesity in China explain one of the leading causes of the weight gain: “The traditional plant-based diet with coarse cereals and vegetables in China has gradually transitioned to a western-style diet with increased consumption of animal-source foods, refined grains, and highly processed, high-sugar, and high-fat foods.” They also point out that, “The intake of animal-source foods per day increased from 60·7 g in 1982 to 162·4 g in 2012, whereas the consumption of coarse grains, legumes, legume products declined substantially.” Social and cultural norms could be an obstacle to reform. “Large body size is often conceived as a symbol of wealth and wellness by the older Chinese generations,” write the authors, “in part because of the major famine in 1959–61 and poor access to foods in the country's recent history.”