This week’s story has me scratching my head. Apparently a lot is going to change between now and 2030, when supposedly 2/3 of China is going to be overweight.

Now I’m not saying that Chinese people aren’t getting bigger, they are. When I arrived in 2007 people were complaining that McDonald’s and KFC were making the children fatter, but that’s only part of the story. Really, it’s the parents’ new found wealth that has changed the diet from mostly rice and vegetables with a few slivers of meat to something that more closely resembles American portions. There is even a noticeable difference in size between people from the countryside and those from the city (both in height and weight), which further shows that it is a wealth issue.

For example: In Nanjing I’m “average” sized, but at that I’m stuck wearing XL clothing (and the shop assistant usually starts with XXL or worse). In Guangxi clothing wasn’t even made for people my size.

So it’s a very interesting thought, but I think for China to grow from 25% overweight (which I don’t believe to start with) to 66%, would require about 66% of the Chinese people to be wealthy.

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