Voices

Time to adjust the scales for healthier weight standards

By Edward Mills (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-24 09:39

Cast aside the images of large men and women that first enter your head when the topic of weight rears its ugly head. Many popular newspapers and magazines in the West have fully embraced the obesity apologist movement. Being extremely fat is to be accepted among politically correct circles these days.

It's not the human cattle grazing at the nearby junk food chain or those waddling down the confectionary aisle in the supermarket that one wishes to question, though. Undeniably they are incredibly unhealthy and need to take drastic action if they wish to function normally in society.

The puzzle lies at the other end of the spectrum, compounded by living in Beijing: what is an acceptable healthy weight and what is too thin?

While it's not unusual to see overweight older Chinese men here (not to mention the fair contingent of foreign faces with a beer gut to match), it's very rare to see a Chinese young woman with excessive weight problems.

Unlike their counterparts in the Western world, Chinese women have totally embraced "the winner is the thinner" mentality. Stick-thin models are the epitome of beauty. Many women admire those who have been under the knife to make them look thinner: facial reconstruction to achieve high cheekbones is growing in popularity here.

Perceptions of beauty and a healthy weight certainly couldn't be more different between West and East. While Chinese models may be size zero, the general feeling is that women should have a little more meat on their bones.

But how to judge what constitutes healthy weight? Well, the body mass index (BMI) is the most generally accepted guideline to work out whether Joe Public is within a healthy weight range for his height. The measurement is supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Chinese government.

The method is simple: Take your weight (kg) and divide it by your height (m) squared (kg/m2). If your result is more than 25, like 63 percent of Americans, then you are overweight (except if you're one of the men with serious muscles at the higher end). Anywhere in between 18.5 and 24.9 is healthy, according to the WHO.

If the BMI is less than 18.5, then you are underweight and may suffer from malnutrition, an eating disorder or other health problems, according to doctors.

One would expect that a lot of Chinese women would fall in the underweight category and yet still want to diet. Indeed, a great number of young women in Beijing are constantly on a diet. Certainly many consistently talk about overeating and needing to lose weight while consuming what Westerners would consider a very small meal. Indeed, to Western eyes, many of the girls walking in the street look as if they might blow away with a strong gust of wind. Of course, to the Chinese, these women with tiny arms and legs are perfectly attractive and the sight of them even depresses other females who are aiming at such physical impossibility themselves.

People often speak of cultural differences, but this is certainly one of the more obvious manifestations of them. The fashion industry is derided in the West for creating negative and unrealistic ideals of beauty for young women. In Beijing these models are admired, while even some "thin" American actresses are categorized as needing to lose weight on Chinese forums.

Indeed, several friends who studied in the UK and the US said they felt happier about their weight while in another country as they seemed "thin" compared to the rest of the population, rather than "fat" in China.

Obviously one doesn't want excessive weight to become the extreme problem it has become in the Western world, but it does seem pertinent to try and address the unobtainable model of weight perfection obsessed over in China. If nothing else, the shift just might cheer up the population of younger women.