Nine years from now or by 2025, China will have the dubious distinction of having the world's largest number of overweight children with ages from five to 17.9 years old, said a new study from the World Obesity Federation, a global community of organizations dedicated to solving the problems of obesity. The federation is based in London.

Like Us on Facebook

If current trends continue, China is expected to have 48.5 million overweight children in 2025. That number is four times the current population of Beijing; almost 10 times the population of Singapore and 18 million more than the population of Malaysia.

This staggering total also compares with a projected 17.3 million overweight children in India and 16.7 million in the United States.

The report said China is eighth on a list of 20 countries with the fastest increases in the prevalence of overweight children. Vietnam, Azerbaijan and Serbia are the top three as of 2013.

A study released last April by an international research team in Shandong found rapid increases in the prevalence of overweight and obese children and adolescents in the province's rural areas between 1985 and 2014.

It said childhood obesity rose 17-fold among boys and 11-fold among girls in rural Shandong,

The explosion in childhood obesity in China is the "worst ever," said an expert commenting on the new study. 

The study found the prevalence of overweight boys jumped from 0.74 percent in 1985 to 16.35 percent in 2014, and from 1.45 percent to 13.91 percent for girls. It also showed that in 2014, about one in six boys and one in 11 girls were obese compared to not even one in 100 in 1980.

Researchers said China is paying the price of adopting a Western lifestyle with its emphasis on fattening and unhealthy fast food. The 29 year-long study, published on April 26 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, involved nearly 28,000 rural students from Shandong province.

"This is extremely worrying," said Prof.Joep Perk, cardiovascular prevention spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology.

"It is the worst explosion of childhood and adolescent obesity that I have ever seen. The study is large and well run, and cannot be ignored. China is set for an escalation of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and the popularity of the Western lifestyle will cost lives."

Tagschina, childhood obesity, overweight children, World Obesity Federation, shandong, European Journal of Preventive Cardiology