As economy grows in Vietnam, so do waistlines
HANOI - When La Huong Giang was a child, her mother struggled to find enough food to put on the table. Now a mother herself, Giang worries how to stop her daughter eating too much.
Eleven-year-old Hang has an insatiable appetite and already weighs 52 kilos (114 pounds) while standing 1.60 meters (5 ft 3ins) tall, one of an emerging generation of oversized children on Hanoi's streets.
"I really wish my daughter could lose weight and get rid of her inferiority complex when she grows up ... but what could I do now?" Giang says. "She has always eaten a lot, basically any kind of food that I have offered."
But it's not just Hang's self-esteem which is in jeopardy. So too is her health. Experts warn rising childhood obesity is storing up problems such as heart disease, cancer and sky-rocketing diabetes rates.
Like the rest of Asia, a boom in Vietnam has seen waistlines balloon along with economic growth figures as a newly affluent middle class is rapidly opting for less healthy lifestyle choices deemed modern.
On Hanoi sidewalks, many restaurant patrons sitting on clusters of small plastic chairs are now opting for food that is fattier, saltier and richer in calories than traditional Vietnamese fare.
Street vendors sell snacks, sugary drinks and ice cream, much of it 'mini-sized' to meet even the smallest budgets. And in buzzing southern Ho Chi Minh City, Western fast-food chains now sell burgers and deep fried chicken.
"Over the last few years, I have tried to prevent Hang from eating too much, especially western food containing butter, cheese and chocolate," says Giang, with a look of resignation.
"Eating habits are certainly changing quickly," says Dr Christian Petit, a paediatrician at the Hanoi French Hospital.
"Many children have access to any food they want now, at a reasonable cost," he tells AFP. "We are seeing a shift from a balanced diet to food that is high in sugar, generating obesity, and that is also probably high in fat."
For many who lived through the trauma and deprivations of the 'American War' the new food choices may seem like fast-food from heaven. For the two-thirds of Vietnam's 82 million people who are under 30, it's just normal.
Since 1990, the rate of diabetes has risen ten-fold in Vietnam's cities, Dr Ta Van Binh, director of the Central Endocrine Hospital in Hanoi, said in a report in Vietnam's state media last November.
Two thirds of Vietnam's two million diabetes sufferers are ill informed about their condition and ignore the warning signs of cardiovascular diseases, foot necrosis, kidney failure and blindness, it said.
Vietnam now looks like Western Europe in the 1950's, after the war ended.
At the time, the richer classes first got fat before realizing they should take care of their health. The poor, the less educated ones, got hit only years later.
Today, only upper classes are considered at risk in Vietnam.
"I am sure that unless attitudes change, in 10 or 15 years the poor classes will be obese and the richer will start to react," Petit says.
Cultural factors also play a role in a country where many families traditionally like to fatten up their children.
"A slender child, you don't know if he's built like this or if he's ill," says Petit. "For a child to have beautiful cheeks and large buttocks is reassuring to parents."
Many mothers are thus overfeeding their infants regardless of the long term consequences. "Obesity can be favoured by nutrition in the very early ages of life," Petit says.
Compared to many richer Asian countries, the problem is just starting in Vietnam, still a largely rural country where traditional food remains popular.
"Obesity is not yet a true problem in Vietnam," says Fabrice Carrasco, head of TNS WorldPanel Vietnam, which carried out last year a survey about diet in the communist nation.
"But the number of overweight people is likely to grow in future as the middle class develops."
National campaigns sure would be useful to raise awareness.
"Unfortunately, Vietnam has more pressing problems to deal with, including infectious or bacterian diseases," says Dr Hoang Thi Dien Thuy, a Vietnamese paeditrician in Ho Chi Minh City's Graal hospital.
"But in the near future, obesity will become a public health issue."
Agence France Presse - April 6, 2006.
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