Malnutrition hits 30 percent of poorest Chinese children (AFP)

BEIJING (AFP) - Nearly one-third of the children in China's poverty-stricken areas are malnourished, far more than in urban areas, in an example of the country's growing income disparity.

The survey conducted by the Beijing-based Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety found that more than 29 percent of children under five years old in China's poorest regions were growing at a slower than normal rate, China Daily said.

In contrast, only about one percent of their counterparts in urban areas are plagued by malnutrition, according to the survey conducted among more than 200,000 residents, including about 23,400 children aged five and below, across the country.

"The problem often surfaces when mothers stop breastfeeding their babies," Han Junhua, a researcher with the institute, was quoted by the China Daily as saying.

It is unclear why the mothers stop breastfeeding their babies, but many women in rural areas have to perform hard labor or travel away from home to make a decent living.

In rural areas, parents often depend on cheap syrup, malt, orange juice and even carbonated soft drinks to feed their children, the researcher said.

"As a result, toddlers in underdeveloped regions are also generally shorter than kids in cities," Han said.

Newborns in rural areas also weigh less than those in the cities.

Too rich a diet, on the other hand, has increased the level of obesity in China's larger, wealthier cities where milk, formula milk powder, yogurt and many other types of food are available.

Severe obesity now affects some 16 percent to 20 percent of urban youngsters.

Average birth weight of some babies in urban areas topped 3.3 kilos (7.3 pounds), close to the level of developed countries, the study found.

Young people between three and 18 years old are on average three centimeters (1.2 inches) taller than a decade ago, it said.

However, the survey also found that 25 percent of children up to two years old in cities and 33 percent in rural areas suffer from anaemia, while 15 percent suffer Vitamin A deficiency.

The poorest parts of China are Guizhou and Yunnan provinces in the southwest as well as Qinghai province in the northwest.

Two and a half decades of economic reform has brought increasing wealth to China's coastal areas and large cities, but many people living in the country's economically backward western regions still struggle to have a proper diet and shelter, with health care and education being luxuries they cannot afford.