A top health expert has urged Chinese authorities to better implement policies aimed at averting a national obesity crisis.

The call comes after the latest report on the general health of Beijing residents discovered that more people are at risk of diseases brought on by being overweight.

Wang Linhong, deputy director of the National Center for Chronic and Non-Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, said sedentary lifestyles and poor diets containing large amounts of sugar and fat have made obesity an increasingly serious problem in China.

"The government has issued many policies that encourage people to exercise more and eat a balanced diet," she said. "But many of them are not fully carried out."

Wang said specific plans are needed to achieve the requirements set out in the plan that the National Health and Family Planning Committee issued last year. These include "to positively build an environment for doing physical exercise" as well as "guaranteeing primary and high school students have at least an hour to do physical exercise".

"For example, few young people use outdoor equipment built in the neighborhoods," Wang said.

According to the Beijing Health Bureau's annual report released on Tuesday, the average resident's body mass index, which is defined as one's body mass divided by the square of their height, reached 25.19 in 2011, while the range of BMI recommended by national health authorities in 2003 was from 18.5 to 23.9.

The average waistline of men exceeds the recommended 85 to 88.7 centimeters, while women's waistlines were just below the limit of 80 cm recommended by national health authorities.

However, Wang conceded that the BMI recommendation China has set for its people is stricter than that recommended by the World Health Organization.

According to a recommendation from the International Life Sciences Institute, Chinese people are considered overweight if their BMI is higher than 24 and obese if it is more than 28, while the WHO has those figures set at 25 and 30 respectively.

More worrying was the report's finding that the prevalence of hypertension was 33.8 percent and diabetes 8.9 percent in 2011, both higher than in 2008.

In the BMI and waistline standards issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, BMIs of more than 23.9 or waistlines larger than 80 cm for women or 85 cm for men increase the risk of heart disease and hypertension.

Chen Junshi, an expert with the International Life Sciences Institute, said the recommendation is based on solid grounds.

"More than 200,000 people in 21 provinces were surveyed," he said. "The recommendation was not made lightly."

wangqingyun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 06/19/2013 page6)