The other day, my replacement in TEDA and I were musing over how the Chinese could stay so thin, given the way they eat. As I have mentioned before, the Chinese over order to an extreme. For any given meal, I just expect to see about twice as much food as the table needs to eat. But the younger generations really don't work out much, certainly not as fanatically as many Westerners. And much of what the older generations do is more light exercise, like ballroom dancing, ping pong and badminton than more intense activities like basketball, lifting weights and running.
When we asked my former TA about this, she said that Chinese women are very concerned with staying thin. They want to look very bony and angular, what we would call sickly skinny. Apparently after a big meal or before bed, many of her friends will throw up what they have eaten. Or maybe they will just chew the food and not swallow when they eat. I don't know why I was so shocked to hear that many of them have eating disorders, but I was. I guess I thought it was genetics!
Wow, genetics, genetics~~ I almost forget my major~~~
ReplyDeletethat's part of the reason, but the main reason is that the food between east and west, people in the west have meat or burger everyday (I mean the pure meat). the Chinese dinner is not the case in terms of the cooking style of Chinese food ( for instance: Chinese slice the potato into slim strips then cook them as a dish), it results in less meat and less energy. So even the people don't have any exercise, normally they would not get chunky easily.
I am happy i am not skinny~~lol
I am hungry again~~
please pass the milk.
ReplyDeleteI changed your title a bit then used as the slogan of my Facebook . lol
by the way, why you are so slim???
Anonymous, very true about the meat and potatoes being the basis for Western diets as opposed to China's more vegetable based. I do think genetics plays somewhat of a role as well, but even vegetables and grains in copious amounts will contribute to chunkiness! Especially with how greasy Chinese food can be too. It's not greasy like Western food, but in it's own way, it can get pretty greasy.
ReplyDeleteI'm hungry as well :)
Glad I could contribute to your facebook, haha.
I think genetics plays a role in my shape too. My parents are both slim. And I left the place I grew up. Everyone that stayed there after high school has gotten considerably bigger, eek! I don't really exercise here, but I am perfectly content wandering around the city and walking many miles to do so each day, which probably helps as well.