Size Discrepancy

In these days, size has become a major issue around the world. Especially with the United States named as the most obese country, where in most areas of the country, 25% of the population is marked as obese, the obesity epidemic is trudging along at an exponential speed. One out of every four Americans are already obese.

This obesity epidemic is slowly edging its way towards Asia and as with economy, wealth, and everything else, Asians are catching up to Americans in terms of weight. Rapidly, McDonalds are popping up all over the countries. For example, nine years ago when I visited China, I always ate Chinese food. My relatives and I would go every day to restaurants and even though there were unhealthy foods, we always had a platter of fish and greens in front of us. Fish and vegetables were ritual at every restaurant meal. But when I went back three years ago, I saw that China was modernizing rapidly. The highways and buildings were all very similar to those in America and even Xing Ning, which was actually quite a poor district, seemed to be modernizing quickly. With modernization comes fast food chains placing themselves in every crevice of the country.

During my time in China three years past, my cousins took my sister and I to a McDonalds. It was jam packed with people. There were three floors in that McDonalds restaurant and every single floor was filled up with so many people that walking had become a challenge through these crowds. So, it isn’t hard to understand how people are suddenly increasing in size in Asia.

However, the obesity dangers are even more apparent in Asians. Asians, especially Southeast Asians, have grown throughout the centuries on a low-calorie diet and braved many decades of malnutrition or famine. Thus, Asians have genes that may make them susceptible to obesity dangers, such as higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, or kidney failure, at lower BMIs (body mass index). For Westerners, a BMI above 25 is considered overweight, while one above 30 is obese. Yet studies have shown that Asians can suffer the ill effects of obesity at a much lower BMI; a World Health Organization (WHO) study has suggested that the threshold for Asians could be a BMI of 23 for overweight, and 26 for obesity. In other words, even though an Asian may naturally look smaller or may even be considered average in American standards can be suffering under the obesity epidemic.

All in all, I believe that this sudden close of a gap between western and eastern sizes is not for the better. Instead of growing smaller, we’re all growing bigger. And in this case, bigger does not mean better.