BEIJING: Rural students in China have grown taller and healthier on average over the past decade thanks to a nutrition improvement plan initiated 10 years ago to ensure young people in the countryside receiving compulsory education can also enjoy daily nutritious lunches at school, said a report.
Based on a survey of 2.27 million rural students, the report found that 15-year-old males are an average of 10 centimeters taller and females of the same age added 8 cm on average in 2020 compared to average heights in 2012.
The malnutrition rate of students in underdeveloped rural regions was down from 20.3 percent to 10.2 percent over the period, while 86.7 percent of surveyed students met national fitness levels in 2020, up from 70.3 percent in 2012, the report said, which was released by the China Development Research Foundation. Almost 38 million students have benefited since 2011 from the national program of nutrition enhancement for rural students receiving compulsory education, according to the Ministry of Education. A total of 28 provincial-level regions around the country have carried out the program, covering 130,000 compulsory education schools in rural areas and 40 percent of rural students receiving compulsory education, the ministry said.
– The Daily Mail-China Daily News exchange item
