Keeping Figure in China

A couple of very basic observations about China:

1. Virtually no one is overweight.

2. The food is everything my health books advise against: mainly refined starches, always oily, the meat is all fatty, everything has MSG and salt in generous quantity, and sugar may be a bit behind the western level, but it's far from non-existent. Diet and low fat cooking are unheard of, and hospitality revolves around eating lots of food.

So how is this possible?

After two months of observation, I've concluded that it is almost solely the result of the stairs and sidewalks.

To get anywhere here requires walking, and a lot of it. If you live on the 4th floor, go to work on another upper floor, walk or bike 15 or 20 minutes to get there, walk 5 minutes to lunch, (or home, and back up your own stairs), take a nap- the Chinese have a very nice custom of 2 hour lunch and nap breaks- , walk back up the stairs to the office, walk or ride back home, walk somewhere to hand out with friends in the evening, walk to the grocery store, and then go home again, you've probably walked 2 or 3 miles and climbed 16 or 20 flights of stairs, and all without even intentionally going out of your way to exercise.

Most of the urban areas are built with 7 floors of apartments over the street level stores- the maximum allowable without having an elevator, and most people choose an apartment based of the quality of the interior and the location, and don't worry about what floor it's on.
A seventh floor apartment has about 100 stairs, at a good steep pitch, leading to it. I've visited one, and my flabby legs assured me they didn't want to do it twice in the same day.

It's no wonder that almost to the person, the overweight people one sees are the wealthy- who live in apartments with elevators. I think in about 10 years, if the current trend of moving toward cars and elevators continues, the US won't the the fat kid on the block anymore. China is headed toward an obesity epidemic like a freight train.

Now I understand why all my Asian friends who come to the states promptly gain weight, and I'm hoping that the reverse- eating like an American and living like a Asian- will take some pounds off of me.

Added to all that the built in activity, many people do exercise. Yoga, sports and martial arts are very popular, and just as popular with middle aged people as young ones, and though the sight of someone running on the street is pretty uncommon, there are scores of late afternoon joggers and walkers in the parks.

Yesterday I went to a city park I'd never been to before. Many a gym could envy the level of activity there! I joined the scores of walkers and joggers, winding through the bamboo and rock garden scenery on the perimeter trail, while under the trees on both sides people were scattered by ones and twos, nearly as numerous as the trees, stretching, doing push ups and practicing yoga on the very worn grass. It was a diverse crowd, everyone from a young mother running (yes running) with her 3 or 4 year old child, to high school athletes, talkative groups of girls, to solidly middle aged (and older) men and women, working out with surprising intensity.
Over on the other side some teenagers climbed on the rocks and young couples sat on the lawn. Even as dark fell, so many people were still exercising that I felt thoroughly safe even in the darkest areas of the park.

Í want to go back to this park with my camera and a notebook- it was small but one of the most attractive and most highly used parks I've seen so far, and I've got a professional curiosity about why it works so well.