FEATURE-India's city kids battle the bulge as economy booms
Source: Reuters
By Nita Bhalla NEW DELHI, Dec 18 (Reuters) - In the swanky shopping malls of India's capital finding a seat in food court restaurants offering everything from pizza and burgers to local delicacies like butter chicken and fried chapatis can chew up much of a lunch hour. At weekends, Delhi's upwardly mobile pour out of their middle-class neighbourhoods and make a beeline for fast food outlets, queuing up to pile plastic trays with tasty meals that are often saturated in fat. Children especially pack their favourite fast food outlets, waistlines bulging out of branded T-shirts and low-cut jeans. As a result, obesity among India's 300 million-strong middle-class is on the rise and dieticians warn kids in particular must change eating habits now or risk serious health problems in the future. "It's a very serious condition as obesity can lead to diabetes, heart disease and early heart attacks," said Ashok Jhingan, chairman of the Delhi Diabetes Research Centre. "Many teenage girls are already suffering from diseases like polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is a condition that occurs in overweight females and disrupts menstruation, and other children have hypertension," Jhingan explained. Obesity, usually seen as a quintessentially Western phenomenon, is fast becoming a major health problem in rapidly developing countries like India and fellow Asian giant China, where fatter wallets are changing lifestyles. About 17 percent of 2,000 teenagers living in New Delhi, aged 14 to 18, recently surveyed by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) were obese or overweight, suggesting prevalence above a global average of 15 percent for all children. BOOMING ECONOMY, BULGING KIDS A recent survey by Hewitt Associates, a human resources consultancy, showed wages in India, Asia's fourth-largest economy, rose 13.8 percent in 2006, the highest in the region. Middle class parents can now take home over $22,000 annually. "India's economic liberalisation in the early 1990s has brought a lot of western ways of living which we didn't have before," said Anoop Misra, director of the Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases department at New Delhi's Fortis hospital and the author of the AIIMS study. "This includes the mushrooming of fast food restaurants and increased availability of snacks like crisps and chocolates which have increased the carbohydrate and fat intake of children." With more families having both parents at work and less cooking being done at home, extra disposable income is increasingly spent on eating out. Around 30 percent of the children in Misra's study said they were eating out three or more times a week. Some said their mothers were working and did not have time to provide a lunch, leaving them standing in line at tuck shops selling snack food. Also aping the west, city children are spending more time in front of televisions and computers than doing physical exercise. DIABETES CAPITAL Obesity is linked to type II or adult-onset diabetes as weight gain leads to insulin resistance. India is the diabetes capital of world with around 37 million cases -- 20 percent of the global figure. If trends continue, the World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts that by 2030 India will have around 80 million diabetics out of a world figure of 366 million. "Diabetes was once considered a disease of older people but now we are seeing younger and younger people coming into the hospital with diabetes," says Joe Curian, who runs Mumbai's S.L. Raheja Hospital. "We've had 14-year-old children coming in with (type II) diabetes," he said, adding that while many diabetics are overweight or obese, the illness can also be hereditary. Diabetes, termed by the WHO as a "chronic disease", can also damage the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves. Around 3.2 million deaths worldwide are attributed to it every year. Doctors say while there is growing awareness of health risks associated with overeating and lack of exercise, most people don't see overweight children as being a serious health concern. In a fast food restaurant in south Delhi, Monica Seth sits down for lunch with her son, Karan, a boisterous 11-year-old who weighs around 65 kg (143 pounds). "We've ordered pizzas," said Seth, a 34-year-old marketing professional. "I know its not the best option, but Karan isn't overweight, he's just healthy."
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