Chinese websites with good, general health information/advice

[ChTTay]

Hey

I'm trying to find a website in Chinese that has good health information on it. For example, about the negative effects of a high salt diet, general good nutrition guidance... Etc

Does anyone know of any sites like this? Do they even exist?

Thanks for any help with this

[roddy]

I'd start on one of the portals - sina or whatever - and drill down through the categories till you find what you want. But I suspect there's going to be a lot of product placement, old wives tales and fads. How about looking to Hong Kong?

[count_zero]

You want western health information translated into Chinese? Or TCM stuff about taking ground up rhino horn for ED and mung beans for cancer?

[ChTTay]

Western Health.

To be honest, some things I say about health just aren't believe by my Chinese friends. They doesn't say as much but I can tell they are dubious.

I'm told that eating porridge oats for breakfast will make me fat ... meanwhile they are enjoying a cake for breakfast. Or things like not using too much salt/oil when we cook.

Essentially, nothing too in depth. Just good general health advice.

[abcdefg]

The standard Chinese ideas about health differ so much from those of the western world that I'm not sure such information exists here, at least on a layman level. China has been more eager to adopt western ideas and techniques in specialty areas such as cardio-thoracic surgery, where eating special mushrooms or using ground up roots and deer horn just won't get the job done.

[Guest realmayo]

The trouble is that lots of advice about diet in the west has only been around for about 30 years or so, and if you look at obesity levels over those 30 years the advice is clearly wrong for lots of people. The idea that exercise is the main way to lose weight, for instance, is a western belief which is as daft as grinding up deer horn.

A common way to lose a bit of weight in East Asia is, I'm told, to eat less rice and other carbohydrates for a while. So I can see why people would say porridge oats can make people fat.

I'd be happier preaching about an independent Tibet in mainland China than extolling the dubious virtues of the western diet.

[abcdefg]

#6 -- Agree with @realmayo that much of what we take for gospel in the west may not actually be all that valid. There are health and wellness fads in the west that are just as nonsensical as what one encounters here in China.

[roddy]

That would be a stronger argument, realmayo, if you proved that it's the people taking the advice that get obese, and the people ignoring it staying slim. And since when has exercise been the main "western" way to lose weight? Have you seen the size of our faddish diet industry? If anything the problem is the number of unrealistic 'no-effort, eat-what-you-want' diet plans.

Abcdefg - yes, but you'd agree that the advice to the public from governments is usually fairly well thought through and valid as far as knowledge at the time goes? How many fads can you find here?

[Guest realmayo]

There are plenty of much stronger arguments but I'm not convinced anyone would be interested in reading them on this thread! But just say the word....

I went from 13 stone to 11 stone in a year by eating lots of fat and some occasional exercise, so if a sample size of one is satisfactory to you, then consider the point proved.

The broader case is simply that the prevalent ideas in the west are all daft. Most simply: after the low-fat craze, manufacturers realised that low-fat processed food tastes horrible so they started adding loads of sugar to make it taste nicer. Hence low-fat = high sugar. Which, as I say, is hard to defend as logical while at the same time chuckling at weird TCM potions.

[roddy]

Not sure marketing techniques by processed food companies = prevalent ideas in the West, to be honest. I think we're barking up the wrong dead end anyway, it's not like there even IS a prevalent idea about anything in the West.

My point, such as it is, is that if you take your health advice from a decent source (not, eg, the advert for your food, but the statutory labelling, not this week's diet magazine, but your health service and its professionals) you won't go far wrong.

[Guest realmayo]

Sorry but I disagree. The prevalent idea in the west is that if you want to lose weight you should eat low-fat, reduce your calorie intake and exercise to burn off calories.

As for health professionals: 30 years ago if you went to a GP and said 'doctor I'm too thin I need to gain weight' you'd be told to exercise and eat predominantly carbs to put on weight. Now if you go to a GP and say you want to lose weight, you're given the same advice.

Personally I think sugar is the main enemy and in the future drinking cans of coke will be seen like smoking or driving in a car without a seatbelt: you probably shouldn't do it and you certainly shouldn't let your children.

[hackinger]

> reduce your (total) calorie intake and exercise to burn off calories.

That certainly is sound advice. Of course the diet should be balanced and all daily requirements should be met.

In the west, low carb diets are very popular too, just search for "low carb craze". A low carb diet or any "low anything" diet will work only, if the daily energy intake (the fraction which can be utilized by digestion) is less or equal than the total energy used or "burned" daily by the body. (Equal if one wants to maintain the current weight.) It is as simple as that. The rest is fodder for a multi billion diet industry.

[Guest realmayo]

It is as simple as that.

If you walk past a restaurant full of people and you ask your friend why there are so many people in there and he says "the number of people going in is greater than the number of people who have gone out, it is as simple as that" you would be dissatisfied with that answer, right? You would ask: why have more people gone in? Why are they staying in there so long?

Plenty of people cut their calorific intake to 800 a day and still don't lose weight. Therefore, it's not as simple as that.

The body has over thousands and thousands of years learned how to regulate weight and energy inputs/outputs. If you give it less energy than it needs it will start hoarding energy, and it will make you sluggish and lazy in order to encourage you to conserve energy.

[roddy]

Are you seriously telling me that NHS advice to lose weight is to eat "predominantly carbs"?* Are you sure you don't just have a shoddy doctor?

"Plenty of people cut their calorific intake to 800 a day and still don't lose weight."

Bloody will if they stick at it long enough. Physics > magical thinking.

*For reference I've checked, and looks to be that carbs should make up about a third of your diet. Which isn't predominantly.

[hackinger]

> Plenty of people cut their calorific intake to 800 a day and still don't lose weight.

Unfortunately the body is bound by the first law of thermodynamics too. :-)

http://zh.wikipedia....rg/wiki/热力学第一定律

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B0%B8%E5%8A%A8%E6%9C%BA

[Guest realmayo]

1) predominantly carbs: for people wanting to lose weight they tell you to cut down on fat and eat "plenty of bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods" as well as "some" meat/fish/eggs etc.

2) Thermodynamics. There's no point having this discussion with you. One year ago I decided to lose weight. I told a friend confidently: I'm going to have to eat less and do loads of exercise. But I decided to do some reading. After reading a lot about how the body works and processes food, and reading lots about scientific studies, I chose a low-carb diet. Exercise occasionally. The weight fell off, I was never hungry, I often ate more calories per day than I used to, it was super easy, and I feel sorry for people who try to lose weight and fail, especially those sweating away hating their time in the gym. And I used to be someone who nodded approvingly when thin people said: if you want to lose weight just eat less it's as simple as that.

If you don't know how insulin works then talking about thermodynamics is a waste of everyone's time.

If you don't understand that your hormones will reduce how much energy you burn if you reduce how much energy you put in then you're missing out on some cool stuff.

If you ever need to learn, there is a great book which is well-written up on this cycling website: http://www.rivbike.c...duct-p/bo16.htm

As it says:

If what you're doing now is working super for you, you don't need to read it.

If you're emotionally, religiously, or otherwise locked in to your current ways and aren't going to change them no matter what and are just looking for an argument, save your loot then, too.

[roddy]

Re 1) - and also plenty of fruit and veg and...well, by the time you add it all up and divide it all out, what do we have?

"Bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods 33%"

It's hardly "load up on carbs".

PS. I hereby ban myself from this topic for 24 hours.

[Guest realmayo]

Roddy, you misunderstand that plate. It's not 33% of calories from bread/rice, it's 33% of the space on your plate occupied by bread/rice. It represents proportional portion sizes, not calorific breakdowns. Imagine how much lettuce you'd need for it to provide 33% of your energy for the day! If you don't believe me, you could ask Michelle Obama:

"Parents don't have the time to measure out exactly three ounces of chicken or to look up how much rice or broccoli is in a serving. ... But we do have time to take a look at our kids' plates.

And within the next 24 hours you can check out:

The World Health Organisation:

Carbohydrates, the report suggests, should provide the bulk of energy requirements – between 55 and 75 percent of daily intake

http://www.who.int/m...s/2003/pr20/en/

A quick kindleurism and a few quid and you could read that book I linked to and then come back to this topic tomorrow and say that you agree with me completely!

Edit: I might be wrong about the UK plate! I mean, I can't see it explained properly anywhere.

[abcdefg]

#17 --

PS. I hereby ban myself from this topic for 24 hours.

I ban myself for longer. Discussing diet is a lot like discussing religion.

[ChTTay]

I agree with ABC

This is gettng like the weight lifting forum i used to browse only we'd all be arguing forever about protein intake and gaining weight.

One thing, who says eat predominantly carbs to lose weight? Who are "they"?

I mostly see high protein diets touted to lead to weight loss, not high carb.

Just curious.

I guess no one knows any websites either ;-)