Both Malnutrition and Nutrition Surplus are currently Existing on Chinese Children

March 19^th, 2008

Compare with general situations in foreign countries, the nutrition absorption situations of Chinese children need to be concerned by the public. The health condition of Chinese children who under 6 years old is getting better, but nutrition surplus and malnutrition still exist. The feature of malnutrition in China is longitudinal malnutrition, and the malnutrition rate of Chinese pre school children is 92%.

Due to lack of scientific reference of children’s diet, Chinese parents do not know how to construct scientific structure diet for their children. Furthermore, there are various types of child food available in the market, and it is not easy to identify the quality of all those child foods. Therefore, it caused the problem of unscientific nutrition structure of food widely concerned by the public, and it seriously dangerous to the health of next generation of Chinese children.

In the conference of “The Nutrition and Health of Children’s Diet” which conducted by Chinese Nutrition Society, schools and experts from the field of nutrient, food, and disease control think that construct healthy food menus is for children is a necessary condition for children to growing with health. Furthermore, scientific nutrition absorption could effectively increase intelligence and physical quality of children, and milk is especially important for the growing of children. According to the data, inadequately intake of milk is a major reason that the health condition of Chinese children is lower than the world level. The average milk intake rate of Chinese people is only 1/5 of the world level, and Chinese children also did not intake enough milk. Furthermore, due to lack of milk intake, the development of Chinese children is seriously behind the world. The height of 33% Chinese children whose age is between 0-5 years old cannot achieve the standard, and the weight of 18% Chinese whose age is between 0-5 years old cannot achieve the standard. Even in the 9 developed cities in China, the average height of children whose age is between 0-6 years old is still 1 CM lower than the standard, and their average weight is 0.8 KG lower than the standard.

Experts also think that based on the actual condition of China. The growing and health condition of rural children need to be improved. We need to put more effort on children nutrition improvement programs, increase the proportion of protein in diet, and improve the sanitation system of the nation.

Reference

China Food Industry Web

Text Translation by: Liu, SiHong