A new trend in China has young people taking cabbages for walks as a way to deal with loneliness and depression.

According to teenagers in China, cabbages are the perfect pet and young people feel they can transfer their negative feelings to the cabbage while walking their vegetable companions.

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Most recently, young people were seen attending a music festival in Beijing and dragging cabbages behind them on leashes.  Going out in public to 'walk' a cabbage reportedly allows for teenagers to seek out like-minded individuals with cabbages of their own.

The cabbages then provide a platform for solitary individuals to find something they have in common with other young people.

While some teens claim that they can project their negative emotions on the cabbage and throw it out afterwards, therefore throwing out their adverse feelings with it, there are others who seem to have grown inordinately attached to their plant confidants.

Psychiatrists have viewed cabbage pets as a healthy form of therapy, but only to a certain extent. There are some concerns that young people will become too attached to their cabbages and forego human company in lieu of their vegetable friends.

They say that today's youth, especially in densely populated countries such as China, are feeling more and more isolated as they attempt to find their place in large, fast-paced cities. Cabbages offer a form of therapy and allow teens to express themselves in a unique way, they say.

Others look at this rising trend as a result of China's strict one-child policy under which sibling-less children go to extremes to seek out companionship and friendship.