The Worries of Growing up

cctv.com 09-01-2005 16:01

I decided I wanted to do this story as I feel it鈥檚 a problem which is currently appearing throughout the world. It鈥檚 a disease which if left unaided could escalate into something far worse than smoking or drinking alcohol. Researchers say that the percentage of obese children in China especially in the larger cities is rising at an alarming rate and something must be done to slow it down.

I went about researching the main problems behind this illness and the facts that appeared were fairly obvious. Obesity can be brought on by genetics, so if your parents are overweight, you of course have a greater chance of following in their footsteps but the main reason nowadays it seems is the fact that there is just too much fast food floating around and too much meat is being eaten at home ant out at restaurants. Gone are the days where food was scarce and people could only afford to eat rice and vegetables. Also, we have the one child policy in China which means that parents and grandparents overly dote on their children.

When we were making this programme, we interviewed several overweight children and their parent. It was sad to see the parents on the one hand saying how they were upset at their child being overweight and yet on the other hand, they were perfectly happy to feed their child all the junk food they wanted so as not to look like the mean parent! It seemed to be a catch 22 situation.

We had some pieces to camera to do in some funny places, for example me sitting outside McDonalds next to Ronald McDonald while talking to the camera which was further away on a bridge. Everyone was walking past me thinking I was either talking to myself or to Ronald鈥o-one saw the camera鈥and so it was slightly embarrassing鈥ut funny!!!! The sad side to making this programme however was when we went to the hospital in Tianjin to film obese children. To get to the size these children were at such a young age was really depressing. But to see them lose all the weight that they had over a period of eight months was encouraging.

This programme was extremely interesting to make and I learnt far more than I thought I would. I now try to watch a bit more carefully what I eat, as I would never want to be in the position that these young obese children have found themselves in. The only way we are going to be able to reduce this problem, however simple an idea it seems is to be, is to cut back on the amount of fatty foods available to us at every corner鈥ts tough鈥ut the only way!

Editor:Hu Hang  Source:CCTV.com