CHRONIC DISEASE
While malnutrition is still a problem in inland provinces that have been left out of the economic boom, the country also faces over nutrition and a rise in attendant chronic diseases.
In 2002, some 200 million Chinese adults were considered overweight by national standards and another 60 million were obese, more than double 1992 levels, according to a report published by the Asian Development Bank.
As a result, China is facing the dual challenge of malnutrition and over nutrition, and simultaneously dealing with communicable diseases common to poor countries and chronic diseases, such as diabetes, associated with the higher fat diets of the developed world.
"The PRC is thus at a critical juncture," warned the 2005 ADB report, 'Strengthening Public Nutrition Planning and Policy in the People's Republic of China'.
"The combination of deep poverty in the past and rapid socioeconomic transitions together pose a 'time bomb' that threatens to disrupt, if not derail, continued socioeconomic development," the report said.
Rates of breast cancer used to be five times lower in China than in the United States, but already in Chinese cities the gap is narrowing, as consumption of fatty foods rises, said Yibin Kang, a molecular biologist at Princeton University.
"When you see a change in diet and living standards it will take 20 years to manifest itself in cancer patterns," said Kang.
PORK TO POULTRY
The average Chinese still eats about half the amount of meat a year as the average American -- about 110 pounds (50 kg) versus 269 pounds (122 kg) -- according to a paper by Daryll E. Ray, of the University of Tennessee's Agricultural Policy Analysis Center.
Traditionally, citizens of the two nations eat roughly the same amount of pork, while Chinese eat far less chicken and beef.
But these patterns are changing as pork prices in China hit record highs due to shortages, a result of disease among pigs and a growing reluctance among farmers to breed pigs.
China's per capita poultry consumption is likely to triple in the next five years as high pork prices trigger a shift, according to recent estimates by Qingdao Chia Tai Co. Ltd, a unit of the world's second-largest poultry producer.
