China's biggest 'little emperors' struggle to tone up

0 Comments | Asian Political News, August 23, 1999

TIANJIN, China, Aug. 18 Kyodo

Less than a year ago, Deng Xuejian was renowned throughout China.

At a massive 174 kilograms, he was the country's, if not the world's, fattest boy.

This year, the Guinness Book of Records recognized him as the world's greatest child slimmer for shedding 60 kilograms in little more than four months.

Last November, the now-determined 11-year-old checked into China's Tianjin Aimin Weight Reduction Center barely able to cope with his weight.

Eight months later, he is a much trimmer, although decidedly still husky, 94 kg and working hard to shed the further 14 kg his doctor, Shi Lidong, believes he must lose before Deng can be considered to have won his contest against obesity.

And he does work hard.

During a meager lunch at China's largest weight-loss center, Deng had to be encouraged three times before he finally set his chopsticks to his tiny meal, particularly because he did not want to eat out of turn before Shi, head of the center in the port city Tianjin southeast of Beijing.

Deng's prestige as the Tianjin Aimin Weight Reduction Center "slimming star," however, has earned him the right to eat at a restaurant outside the center, and, in a way, to bend for moment or two at a time the center's rigid rules for forced weight loss.

Although Deng is still heavier than his middle-aged doctor desires, Shi's pride in the boy's massive efforts to fight his obesity was manifestly evident in the way he, in an overt display of affection, served the boy his meal.

Shi is providing free treatment for Deng at the center because Deng's parents, farmers who live near Tianjin, are unable to afford the center's monthly fee of 3,000 yuan (363 dollars), the equivalent of nearly three times the average urban Chinese monthly income.

The parents of nearly all of the other children who have come to the center from throughout China are rich, Shi said.

Shi added that like the other 50 overweight children being treated at the center, Deng's obesity is not hereditary.

"He ate too much," the doctor said simply.

Deng and the other children are, however, making fierce headway in a well-coordinated battle against obesity by "eating bitterness," a popular Chinese expression for perseverance, rather than consuming large quantities of food.

The center's 30 doctors ensure the children follow a rigid regime of exercise three times a day and also take morning acupuncture and counseling sessions.

"The acupuncture quells their hunger, while the counseling sessions encourage them not to be lazy," Shi said.

"A major problem with the obese children, some of whom weigh more than double the body weight of most children their age, is their psychological approach to life. Many are reclusive in nature, while laziness is often reflected in poor school marks," said Shi, a former army doctor who opened the center in 1993.

Some of the 30 boys and 20 girls now at the hospital will stay only during their two-month school summer holiday, which ends next month.

Others, forced to leave school because of their obesity, will have longer treatments.

Children account for 20% of the Tianjin Aimin center's patients and more than 400 adults visit the center daily to receive acupuncture and Chinese medicines, Shi said.

He added, however, the adult patients also include the figure-conscious, "more concerned about their weight than they ought to be."

The number of patients has grown along with the onset of modernity in China, manifested in a more sedentary lifestyle in front of televisions and computers, and in the growing popularity of calorie-laden fast-food, Shi said.

Reinforcing the already tempting tendency to put on too much weight is what Shi sees as a particularly "Chinese" way of thinking.

Parents with only one child indulge their increasingly large "little emperors" because of the country's one-child birth control policy, he said.

"Ten years ago, seven percent of Chinese people aged 12 to 18 were overweight. Now, the figure is more than 20%," Shi said.

Shi's attempts to foster a sense of "collective spirit" among the children at the center in their fight against obesity appears to be paying off.

Many of the children shed as much as 30 kg during their first month, and all display a determination to lose weight.

E Yaowen, 16, from northeast China, said he curtailed his previously customary consumption of three dishes at each meal and lost 27 kg.

E, now 130 kg, said he is looking forward to being able to dance more easily at discos, his favorite pastime.

Wang Dong, a 16-year-old from Beijing, said his goal is to be able to play soccer after trimming another 70 kg off his current 167 kg.

"If I can lose more weight, life will be easier," he said.

But the center does not accept anyone and everyone.

Shi said he rejected a 21-year-old from central Henan Province last year because the stress already placed on the man's heart by his 130 kg meant he was already "too far gone."

"I did not want to be held responsible if the man died at the clinic," Shi said.