| China’s Two Sessions, the annual parliamentary meetings where politicians set the nation’s agenda for the year ahead, is typically a somber occasion. But this March, one exchange stole the show. Asked by reporters about the country’s plan for weight management, a delegate to the top political advisory body singled out one reporter in the pool. “Big tummies like yours are our main target,” he quipped. A video of the exchange went viral, and the hashtag “the country is calling on you to lose weight” became a trending term on social media. The nation’s rising obesity rate has caught the attention of China’s health ministry, which outlined a range of measures during the Two Sessions to tackle the issue, including urging hotels to install scales. The National Health Commission estimates that more than half of all Chinese adults are overweight or obese, and the figure could rise to more than 70% by 2030 if current trends continue. “China has probably more of a sense of urgency compared to the rest of the world, in the sense that it is listed in almost all the national initiatives, all the national plans,” says Marie Ng, a health data analytics researcher at the National University of Singapore. As many as 627 million Chinese adults are projected to be overweight or obese by 2050, according to a recent study. Ng says they will be more likely to be affected by chronic conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, and this will have staggering financial implications for the country’s healthcare system. One study cited by authorities predicted that medical expenses attributed to excessive weight could rise to more than one-fifth of all government spending on health care. Hospitals have responded to the government’s call to set up weight management clinics, and authorities want to have those services nationwide by this June, Xinhua reported. The potential market opportunity is not lost on drugmakers. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy became available in China in November and the company recently launched a digital weight management platform with internet giant Tencent. But Novo and Eli Lilly, the other dominant weight-loss drugmaker, could soon face competition from local firms like Innovent Biologics. These relatively pricey medications will likely only serve high-income individuals, says Leon Cheng, a partner at consulting firm YCP Healthcare, and the actual effects of the government campaign remain to be seen. “You need to be careful when you look at those national level big plans,” he says. “It’s always down to the implementation of each individual city of the province.” A cultural shift may also be required to change deep-seated ideas in a country that, just a few decades ago, was struggling with nutrition deficiency. “If they have to live 60 years of unhealthy life, how much is going to cost the government?” she says of overweight children. “We still need to work on more to reverse the idea of ‘chubby is good.’” — Amber Tong | 
