May 20th is the 20th Student Nutrition Day in our country. The other day, the China Association for the Promotion of Student Nutrition and Health released the Blue Paper on "The Nutrition and Health of Chinese Children and Adolescents 2009 - Focus on Child Obesity, Stay Away from Chronic Diseases". Recently, revolving around the topics of nutrition and obesity in children and adolescents, I interviewed Researcher Ma Guansheng, Vice President of the China Association for the Promotion of Student Nutrition and Health.
Nutritional Deficiency Still Exists
Reporter: How is the overall nutritional status of children and adolescents in our country currently?
Ma Guansheng: In the 60 years since the founding of New China, especially in the last 30 years of reform and opening up, there has been a marked improvement in the dietary nutrition and health status of children and adolescents in our country. For example, the energy and protein intake of urban and rural children and adolescents has been basically met; the quality of rural children's diet has also improved, with the dietary structure becoming more reasonable; the growth and development level of children and adolescents has steadily increased, with both height and weight significantly improving. However, a large number of survey results show that the physical fitness of children and adolescents in our country is declining, especially the large number of "little fat boys" appearing in cities, which has become a difficult public health issue to resolve. From a nutritional perspective, there are still issues of insufficient nutrition and nutritional imbalance among children and adolescents. On one hand, malnutrition among children and adolescents still exists, especially severe in western regions, where many children have a "bean sprout" body shape due to malnutrition. On the other hand, the number of "little fat boys" in cities is also showing an upward trend.