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BEIJING- The waltz is seen as a quick-quick-slow solution to an alarming rise in obesity among Chinese schoolchildren and is about to make its way into schools.
Obesity is a new problem for China. Chinese children are traditionally slim and active, raised on healthy diets of rice, fish and vegetables. The only sweets on offer were white rabbits, small chewy sweets dispensed rarely to reward good behaviour.
These days, China's waistbands are being stretched as the economy grows by double-digits every year, translating into poor dietary habits.
The China Daily quoted a Ministry of Education notice saying dance steps have been designed to "suit the physical and psychological characteristics of students at different ages". One measure involves boys and girls in senior high schools learning the waltz.
"Each dance set lasts four to five minutes, and will be performed during class breaks or in extra-curricular time.
"They will not replace the physical exercise course," the paper said.
Videos of the first of seven dance routines will be sent to provincial education departments, which will also require that teachers learn the dances. The ministry plans to bring out new sets every two years.
While most of China remains mired in poverty, strong economic growth in the eastern seaboard and Beijing has given rise to chubbier children and teenagers.
The one-child policy, which restricts the number of offspring born to a family, has created spoilt children who gorge themselves on hamburgers, fried chicken and chips - foods unknown to their parents.
Eating in Western fast food restaurants, which are relatively expensive in China, is also a way of letting people know that you have money to spend.
There has been a rise in the number of fat farms where obese children are put through military-style training to get them to shed the kilos.
Famines happened in living memory in China and the belief that a fat child is a healthy one is common.
Students' height, weight and chest measurements are rising but lung capacity, speed and strength, are falling. Boys, more treasured than girls, suffer most from obesity: as parents stuff them in the hope that they will turn into tall men.
A recent national survey suggested at least a quarter of China's urban boys are overweight.
Nutrition experts reckon that a remarkable 60 million Chinese are now obese and the problem is getting worse among children, especially boys.
The Minister of Education, Zhou Ji, has called on all schools to strengthen physical education and ensure students have one hour of physical exercise every day.
Wang Wenrong, of the Guangxi Normal College, told the China Daily: "Group dancing will help cultivate students' social graces and sense of collectivism."
There has been a big rise in blogs which promote weight loss competitions, where teenagers around the country compete to see who can lose the most weight fastest.
The weight-loss obsession is fuelled by a raft of nationwide surveys showing that teenagers' physical indices, such as strength and speed, have been declining. At the same time, obesity has been on the rise.
Statistics also show about 160 million Chinese have high blood pressure and 20 million have diabetes, which is expected to become a major killer in the next 10 years.
Obesity in the developing world
Once a scourge of the developed world, childhood obesity is now an increasing problem in poorer countries, particularly where economic growth is strong.
China and India have been overwhelmed by a huge rise in the number of children with diabetes.
By 2010, one in five Chinese children will be overweight and currently 17 per cent of Indian children are classified as obese.
A report last year by the International Obesity Taskforce said Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Egypt have childhood obesity rates comparable to fully industrialised nations.
- INDEPENDENT
