As the 2013 Health Survey for Students in Jiangsu Province issued on May 13 shows, the main health problems plaguing Jiangsu youngster are myopia and obesity.
The rates of myopia, obesity and overweight for Jiangsu students in rural and urban areas who are 7-18 years old are higher than the national averages.
The myopia rate of the students aged 7 to 22 is 75.5 percent. To be specific, the myopia rate of college students has risen by 26.4 percent compared to that of 2010 and that of rural schoolboys and schoolgirls up by 7.5 percent and 7.4 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, the overweight rate of Jiangsu students is 15.7 percent in 2013, up by 3 percent compared to 2010. According to Su Lixin, director of the Students Health Monitoring Center of Jiangsu, what lie behind the high myopia rate among students are overuse of eyes and failure to form a good eye use habit.
The drop of the physical quality indicators of the students is a result not only from few attention paid to physical exercises, but also from the excessive care given to children by parents, said Pan Shaowei, deputy director of the Students Health Promotion and Research Center of Jiangsu.
On the bright side, the survey also shows that the primary and secondary school students in Jiangsu have improved in health indicators such as height, weight, and vital capacity and 19 indicators outperform national averages in 2013.
