Ten Percent Of China's Children are Obese

Official statistics show that 10 percent of the children in China are obese and the number is increasing by eight percent each year, state media said.

Experts are calling for increased awareness about the rising numbers of obese children, and called for a balanced diet and physical exercise to help control the weight of kids, the Xinhua news agency said.

Some 14.8 percent of boys in primary schools are obese, and some 13.2 percent more are overweight, with the proportions for girls standing at nine percent and 11 percent, respectively, Xinhua said.

Some 13.2 percent of children in northeast China are obese, the largest proportion in the country, followed by 12.2 percent in east China and 10 percent in central and south China.

In big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, there is an average of one obese child in every five, Xinhua said.

China's children are doing less outdoor exercises, while watching TV and playing games at home -- the primary reasons behind the trend towards increasing child obesity -- has increased, experts said.

They warned that obese children are vulnerable to a host of health-related problems, including weakened intellect and high incidence of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.

Beijing, one of the country's wealthiest cities, had particularly severe problems, the agency said in a separate report earlier this month.

More than 18 percent of the capital's primary and middle school students are characterized as obese, nearly doubling from a decade ago, the agency said.

The findings confirm a pattern observed in many other countries where rising standards of living make non-infectious chronic diseases a rising danger to public health.