Losing weight is dangerous obsession for some Chinese women

By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-10 10:47

"Have you ever tried to lose weight?" Ask this question to any Chinese woman and prepare for a barrage of passionate responses.

At the end of the 1990s in China, it was all the rage for women to take special formula teas and pills to control their weight. Shortly after, the more painful option of acupuncture emerged as a popular choice.

And now, we have the opportunity to eat potentially lethal parasitic roundworm eggs.

I was raised by a mother who has been trying to lose weight for 23 years, and I feel equipped with quite a lot of knowledge on the subject.

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But eating roundworm eggs still came as a shock to me when I first heard, and learning they were available for purchase online at taobao.com, one of the most popular online shopping websites in China, was startling.

I am not questioning how unproven, unhealthy and probably illegal "dieting products" end up in taobao because they undoubtedly fulfill a public demand, but I do wonder why so many Chinese women want to lose weight.

This extreme technique reminds me of college life. In university, gorgeous young women surrounded me everywhere and it was always difficult to get a decent meal.

In campus cafeterias there would be skinny people ordering tiny portions of food and complaining they were too fat.

Even our custom to invite friends for dinner became harder to pursue because many women prefer to skip the meal.

These days, few women in China regard themselves as having good shapes, saying they only want to be slimmer. But losing weight has started to feel like a bizarre competition; we all take part but we have no idea where the finishing line is.

While I can't predict how many women in China are brave enough to try radical methods like eating roundworm eggs, I am certain that if we don't stop this obsession soon, the future will be even more horrible.

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