Most teenage boys and girls are busy preparing lessons for the coming mid-term exams as the autumn school semester has entered its eighth week.

But Pu Xiaobo, a Shanghai teenager, spends his days receiving acupuncture treatment and doing exercises in Tianjin at the Aimin Weight Reduction Hospital.

Pu, 14, is not alone.

All of his 57 pals in the live-in treatment programme are either teens or in their 20s.

Kato Dai was obviously the biggest one in the group and attracts the most attention.

He weighed 294 kilograms when he came to the hospital from Japan in early August.

Early on, he was quiet and weird, but after losing more than 50 kilograms, he became friendly and closer to his Chinese friends. Though he still barely speaks Chinese, he grins splendidly to whoever talks to him.

Talk of foods most Chinese crave in the autumn - when most people are savoring food to make up calories lost in summer - is normal. But as obesity becomes a social and medical problem everywhere in China, especially in Northeast and North China, according to Shi Lidong, director of the hospital, people are encouraged to refrain from "making up for" what they may have lost in the heat of summer.

Shi and his colleagues definitely have not seen the number of outpatient visitors dwindle as this autumn arrived. The number remains around 400 every day.

Slaves to obesity

For 11 years since the hospital's establishment, Shi and his colleagues have maintained and improved the treatment programme combining traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture with exercise.

They believe the excessive appetite, lack of exercise and undue absorption of nutrients into the body are culprits that contribute to obesity.

"Teenagers are spending more and more time watching television or playing at their computers and they seldom go out to play. Meanwhile, the space in the cities for children's exercise activities is growing smaller and smaller," Shi said.

Statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Education show that the number of primary and middle school students suffering from obesity increases by about 10 per cent every year.

And 80 per cent of the patients signing up for the in-house weight loss programme have been students under 22.

"This fact can well reflect the worrying obesity situation in young people," Shi said.

As a result, every member in the live-in programme has a similar story to share.

Now able to walk at a fast and brisk pace, Pu, who has lost 22 kilograms in 14 weeks from an original 94 kilos, recalled that just before he came to Tianjin, he seldom walked.

"It was really tiring for me to move," Pu said.

At the age of six, he felt that he was becoming bigger and bigger. Playing computer games, watching television, and eating snacks were the pastime joys he could recollect. At least two times a week, he would visit KFC and MacDonald's.

Unlike his fellow classmates, he had to call a taxi to go to school. However, with his increasingly bigger body, climbing stairs to his classroom became more and more of an impossible mission for him. What made him feel even worse was that students around him frequently jeered at him.

A year ago, Pu suspended his learning at school and finally made up his mind to lose weight.

Cheng Jian, 20, from Beijing, was full of valour and vigour, running like a small tank on the basketball court. Having lost 30 kilos of weight, his 122-kilo-heavy body looks much more slim.

He had been very much pampered by his parents and grandparents at home.

"I was fed all kinds of nutriment in my childhood, because they hoped that I could grow into a healthy and strong young man," he recalled.

However, from the age of seven, 10 kilos of weight were added to his body steadily each year, while his appetite grew larger and larger.

"After walking for only a few steps, I would gasp for breath," Cheng remembered. Later it became increasingly difficult for him to take care of himself. "I could barely bend from my waist to pick up the things on the ground," Cheng said.

Treatment offered

Traditional Chinese medicine preaches that matching the right medication can cure the right ailments.

Eight o'clock every morning, these big young live-in patients come to the outpatient department at the hospital to receive a regular acupuncture treatment for half an hour, which plays a big part in the programme.

Twenty needles are inserted in various points of the belly and legs, for the purpose of curbing the appetite and absorbing functions of stomach and intestines as well as making the fat metabolize, dissolve and get discharged from the body, according to Li Wenjuan, chief doctor in the outpatient department.

Small white tissue patches on various points on the earlobes could be seen on most of the outpatients coming out of the hospital. A kind of traditional Chinese medicine is buried under the patches and is thought to reduce the patients' appetite.

The patients also take some supplementary traditional Chinese medicines, but it does not carry the effect of weight loss. "It is only for the purpose of clearing the stomach and regulating the flow of vital energy," said Shi Lidong.

"Obese people generally have other combined diseases, and these traditional Chinese medicines have a nursing effect on them," he added.

Besides following a strict dietary programme, Pu and his pals also arranged to do regular exercises every day following directions from three coaches.

Those exercises include basketball, badminton, swimming, calisthenics, walking, jogging and dancing.

A shuttle bus takes them to a middle school, where they exercise at the school's gymnasium.

On the badminton court, Kato Dai looked like a small hill standing on the half-court. Seldom moving his feet, he could always hit back the balls. Frequently, he would make a few drops, which could be barely rescued by his opponent. At that time, broad grins again appeared on his big, dark face.

A few months ago, he could hardly walk and could only sit on the bench watching, but now he has become a skillful badminton player, said Li Ying.

On the second floor above the court, two boys and a girl walked around in circles.

"There are some problems with their lungs, so they cannot take part in the strenuous exercise," said coach Wang Xihong.

For the outpatients in the hospital, the doctors also made a particular dieting and exercise plan for them according to their different conditions, assisting in their battles against obesity.

The outpatients come to the hospital two or three times a week for acupuncture treatment. The course of treatment lasts for three months.

And the 90 days of hard work have produced good results.

"I am becoming much slimmer now, especially at my waistline... about 18 centimetres smaller," Cheng said proudly, placing his hands on his big belly.

A most obvious difference from months ago is that he can walk really fast and running is not just a wish anymore.

Though still looking a bit bigger than "normal" boys, he feels really comfortable with his present physical condition, he said.

After experiencing the hardship of weight reduction, Pu said that he will exercise more when he returns home.

"I believe I've got the willpower to control my behaviour," he said. "I never want to come back here again."

(China Daily October 30, 2003)