A．Nowadays, as China's middle class swells in number---and its people discover the pleasures and disappointments of a life spent pursuing material comfort-- there has come the emergence of a distinct counter-culture. In Chinese, they are the wenyi qingnian, or wenqing for short, literally meaning "culturedyouth". It's China's closest equivalent to the alternately beloved and criticized English word, "hipster".

B．What does a typical "cultured youth" look like? Baidu Baike, China's version of Wikipedia, contains an entry on the term that quotes the writer andmusician Guo Xiaohan: "I think I'm a wenyi qingnian, and a very typicalone. I like poetry, novels, indie music ( 独立音乐 ) , European cinema,taking pictures, writing blogs, cats, gardening, making dessert and designingenvironmentally friendly bags."

C．Spiritual at heart, yet living in a very material, money-driven modern society,wenqing are marked as highly individualistic, romantic, cultural connoisseurs(行家).

D．They are more likely to be middle-to-upper class citizens, and stand indeliberate contrast to their Louis Vuitton-bag toting, BMW-driving, nouveauriche ( 暴发户) counterparts. They are defined much less by what theyown, and much more by how they think. And as Faye Li, a 27-year-old NGOworker in Beijing, said with slight mockery, "They always like to be differentfrom everybody else."

E．Like hipsters, wenqing strongly resist labeling themselves as such. Theterm "cultured youth" can divide Chinese audiences, alternately attractingadmiration or mockery. A perfect example emerged on Sina Weibo withthis post entitled, "Shanghai 'cultured youth' girls aboard a subway readingpoetry".

F．The post features a video showing three women dressed in striped dresseswith tiny, feathered top hats pinned to their hair. On board a crowdedsubway carriage they read aloud a poem about nature. Some commenterscongratulated the performers, commending-them for their creativity anddaring. But others called the video "rubbish" or noted that there did not seemto be much difference between "cultured youth" and "dnmbass youth" whichwritten in Chinese Internet slang as "2B qingnian".

G．One Internet user condemned the three performers as inauthentic ( 不真实 的 ) , writing, "Wenqing doesn't mean going through the motions; it's aboutthe content, and even more about the feelings of the inner world. Go and livein the world of wenqing, and you'll realize it has nothing to do with age orgender." The commenter's earnestness is a cultural mark of these "culturedyouth".

H．A photo collage ( 拼贴 ) that has been reposted over 7,000 times on SinaWeibo may help to illuminate the precise differences between a "culturedyouth" and a "2B youth". It illustrates a number of day-to-day activities, suchas driving, writing and eating, but each is performed in three different styles:The ordinary way, the "cultured youth" way, and the "2B youth" way.

I．While meant to be humorous, it also keenly illustrates how the definitionof "cultured youth" diverges from that of a "2B youth". It also shows whatthe self-confessed "dumbasses" of China share in common with Americanhipsters, or at least with their counter-culture origins.

J．In the United States, hipsterism ( 嬉皮士文化 ) first grew out of theslacker ( 逃避工作者 ) era of the 1990s. Slackers were frustrated youths, stuck in low paid "McJobs" and pessimistic about their futures. They hadwitnessed the sophistication (老练) with which corporate America had somagnificently co-opted the values and alternative lifestyles of the hippies,protest culture and other counter-cultures of the previous three decades. Theirresponse was to stop creating new culture altogether, indeed, to stop believing in anything.

K．Of course, the adaptability of corporate America continues to prove itself, andin the last decade we have seen hipsterism well and truly enter the Americanmainstream. Where recycling ideas from the past or from the working classwas once a kind of anti-fashion, it is now fashion. And yet hipsterism hasretained a flavor--however empty--of rebellion.

L．These characteristics are common to China's "2B youth". They are youngmen and women who have nothing much going on. As the photo collage suggests, they like to engage in pointless and deliberately self-defeatingbehavior, all, it sometimes seems, for nothing more than the "lulz" ( 从别人 的痛苦中获得快乐).

M．Behind these counter-cultures lies a hard reality. A recently released PewGlobal Attitudes Survey showed that 81 percent of those polled in Chinaagreed with the following statement: "The rich just get richer while thepoor get poorer." And as Foreign Policy reported, the country's gender imbalance--120 boys for every 100 girls--has put serious pressure on the nation's bachelors. Those hunting for a bride have come to understand that they should come calling only when armed with an apartment. This, even though "the average property in a top-tier Chinese city now costs between 15 and 20 times the average annual salary".

N．In the face of such great social pressures, it's small wonder that some Chineseyouth have made giving up an art form and a point of pride. Terms once slung like stones--"2B qingnian," along with diaosi ( 屌丝 ) , meaning "loser"-have been reclaimed by their victims and are now employed in deliberate self-mockery. These words provide a sense of identity and belonging to young Chinese who feel that on the bitterly competitive playing field of Chinese society, they are not simply falling behind; they're altogether out of the race.

O．For the majority of young Chinese, the formula for success in their fast-rising,hard-charging society remains the same: Study hard, chase the big bucks,become "mortgage slaves", quickly get married, and have a kid. Then watchthe cycle repeat. But for the growing number who find these goals harderto achieve, embracing their outsider status might be the best--and perhapsonly--way forward.

style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/B． The World Health Organization recommends using a formula that takes into account a person's height and weight.-The"Body Mass Index" (BMI) is calculated by dividing the person's weightin kilograms by the square of their height in meters, and is thus given inunits of kg/m2. A BMI of 18.5-24.9 is considered to be the healthiest. A BMI of between 25 and 29.9 is considered to be overweight, while a BMI of over 30 is considered to be obese.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/C． However, it is recognized that this definition is limited as it does not take into account such variables as age,gender and ethnic origin, the latter being important as different ethnic group shave very different fat distributions. Another shortcoming is that it is not applicable to certain very muscular people such as athletes and bodybuilders,who can also have artificially high BMIs. Agencies such as the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) in the USA and the International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) are starting to define obesity in adults simply in terms of waist circumference. 
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/Health Effects of Obesity
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/D． Over 2000 years ago, the Greek physician Hippocrates wrote that" persons who are naturally very fat are apt to die earlier than those who are slender". This observation remains very true today.Obesity has a major impact on a person's physical, social and emotional well-being. It increases the risk of developing diabetes mellitus type 2("mature onset diabetes") and also makes Type 2 diabetes more difficult to control. Thus weight loss improves the levels of blood glucose and blood fats, and reduces blood pressure. The association between obesity and coronary heart disease is also well-known. 
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/Cancer
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/E． Furthermore, in 2001 medical researchers established a link between being overweight and certain forms of cancer, and estimated that nearly 10,000 Britons per year develop cancer as a result ofbeing overweight. This figure was made up of 5,893 women and 3,220 men, with the strongest associations being with breast and colon cancers. However, it is thought that being overweight may also increase the risk of cancer in there productive organs for women and in the prostate gland for men.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/F． The link between breast cancer and nutritional status is thought to be due to the steroid hormones, oestrogen and progesterone, which are produced by the ovaries, and govern a woman's menstrual cycle. Researchers have found that the more a woman eats, or the more sedentary her lifestyle, the higher are the concentrations of progesterone. This link could explain why women from less affluent countries have lower rates of breast cancer. Women from less affluent nations tend to eat less food and to lead life styles which involve more daily movement. This lowers their progesterone level, resulting in lower predisposition to breast cancer.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/G． The Times newspaper, in 2002 reported that obesity was the main avoidable cause of cancer among non-smokers in theWestern world! 
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/Aging
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/H. Research published by St Thomas'Hospital, London, UK in 2005 showed a correlation between body fat and aging,to the extent that being obese added 8.8 years to a woman's biological age. The effect was exacerbated by smoking, and a non-overweight woman who smokes 20 cigarettes a day for 20 years added 7.4 years to their biological age. The combination of being obese and a smoker added at least ten years to a woman's biological age, and although the study only involved women, the lead researcher Professor Tim Spector believes the finding would also apply to men.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/I. The aging effect was determined by measuring the length of telomeres, tiny "caps" on the ends of chromosomes,which help protect the DNA from the ageing process. Indeed, telomeres have been dubbed the "chromosomal clock" because, as an organism ages, they become progressively shorter, and can be used to determine the age of the organism. Beyond a certain point, the telomere becomes so short that it is nolonger able to prevent the DNA of the chromosome from falling apart. It is believed that excess body fat and the chemicals present in tobacco smoke release free radicals which trigger inflammation. Inflammation causes the production of white blood cells which increases the rate of erosion oftelomeres.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/Dementia
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/J. Recent research (2005) conducted in the USA shows that obesity in middle age is linked to an increased risk of dementia, with obese people in their 40s being 74% more likely to develop dementia compared to those of normal weight. For those who are merely overweight, the lifetime risk of dementia risk was 35% higher.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/K. Scientists from the Aging Research Centre at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have been able to take information such as age, number of years in education, gender, body mass index, blood pressure level, physical activity and genetic factors, assigning each a risk score. They then used this information to devise a predictive test for dementia. This test will enable people at risk, for the first time, to be able to affect life style changes which will reduce their risk of contracting dementia.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/Other Problems
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/L. The world-wide upsurge in obesity,particularly in children, is of major economic concern, liable to drain economies. Of further concern is that research conducted in Australia and published in 2006, shows that up to one third of breech pregnancies were undetected by the traditional "palpation" examination, the danger being greatest for those women who are overweight or obese—a growing proportion of mothers. This means that such women are not getting the treatment required to turn the baby around in time for the birth, and in many cases require an emergency caesarean section.
style=color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Microsoft YaHei"; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);/M. This is a true health-care crisis, far bigger than Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and ultimately, even bigger than AIDS.