I just came back from a trip to Hong Kong & Tokyo and noticed two things that surprised me as an Asian American. Aside from the massively crowded subways and kinky maid cafes in Tokyo, I mean.
The teenagers there are TALL! Not necessarily Yao Ming tall, but you could put together a good all-Asian NBA team there. Before embarking on this trip, some friends had told me I’d be towering above the people in Hong Kong; that was not the case at all. Well, I did tower over the elderly. But I could see up the noses of lots of teenagers too.
Also, the people there are SKINNY. Not mal-nuriously Kate-Moss skinny, but thin. Part it it could have been their wardrobe. Form-fitting clothes are fashionable there, as opposed to the baggy clothes you’ll find in the US. But despite this observation, many Asians believe that obesity is becoming a problem. According to Ramen Goel, a member of the Obesity Surgery Society of India:
One in three children, the child is overweight. That means 30 percent of the children is overweight. That’s a dangerous trend because it’s almost at par with what you have in the USA.
Similar reports have come in from other parts of Asia as well. Anti-obesity surgery is apparently a rising trend. Why is that?
“Food portions are increasing in Tokyo,” a friend told me. “They’re not as large as the portions in America yet, but they’re getting that way.”
Height, weight, even breast sizes are all increasing in Asia due to changes in their diets. This comes as a result of rising affluence, less active lifestyles (from farm workers to office workers), increasing food portions, and a wider range of foods to choose from – like fast food, a Western establishment.
I actually lost weight while in Hong Kong & Tokyo because of the relatively smaller food portions. But they’ll catch up with US portions soon enough. And with a McDonalds (or Mos Burger or Freshness Burger) on every corner, well, it’s easy to see the foodwise effects of the West in Asia. All those stereotypes of Asians being short will fade away in a generation or two.
(Though I wonder how they’ll continue to fit into their tiny cars.)
What next?
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7 Comments to “The Foodwise Effects of the West in Asia”
Ernie wrote:
While I don’t have any constructive to add to this conversation, I just want to mention that this is the best photograph ever.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 1:01 pm | Permalink
jozjozjoz wrote:
I just want to say that I in my last few trips to Asia, I have noticed that Asians seem taller. But I did not notice any problem with obesity. Then again, they are talking about children.
Posted on 05-May-07 at 2:15 pm | Permalink
jozjozjoz wrote:
Oh yes. Props for that photo.
Ernie is right… best evar!!!!!
Posted on 05-May-07 at 2:18 pm | Permalink
Nicole Lee wrote:
While I believe that the foods of the West have made some negative impact in Asia, I honestly don’t know if the impact was ever really that big. Most Asians still have a horribly distorted belief that girls should be skinny as a rail. A girl’s size Small in the U.S. would probably be a size Large or Xtra Large in Singapore. A woman with a completely normal BMI in the U.S. would be considered fat in a lot of East Asian countries. The stigma is huge, and I don’t really see it going away any time soon.
I understand what you’re talking about with size portions in the U.S. and fast food and so forth, but I don’t think obesity is as big a problem in Asia as the unrealistic expectations of beauty.
Posted on 06-May-07 at 1:50 am | Permalink
Mike wrote:
I wondered about the obesity issue too. In my experience, everyone was stick thin. And tall.
You’re probably right – it’s probably more a perception of beauty than a health problem. Unless all the obese people just don’t walk around in the daytime, and that’s why we don’t see them. (Sort of like obese vampires? Whoa.)
Posted on 06-May-07 at 9:59 am | Permalink
John wrote:
That photo is SCARY! Are you sure that photo isn’t Photoshop’d ???
Posted on 08-May-07 at 9:44 pm | Permalink
Xxxtine wrote:
It kinda makes things like this:
http://popseoul.com/2007/04/09/son-ho-young-lee-sora-are-fighting-obesity/
seem silly huh.
Me thinks it may be propaganda built to encourage people to eat healthy and not junk fast food fare – not that the proproganda’s message is bad, it’s just fear motivated + a distorted perception of what the norm is.
Also, comparing junk food between the States and Canada – I nearly had a heart attack when I stepped into a grocery store in Michigan and the entire aisle was filled with refined sugar icing products – meant for consumption by children and teens.
Posted on 09-May-07 at 2:36 pm | Permalink
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