In the 1989 China Health and Nutrition Survey, height and weight were measured in adults of 20-45 years. The distribution of adults' nutritional status by tertile of per capita income, according to BMI classification is shown in Table 4. The eight provinces are arranged in order of increasing proportions of individuals with low BMIs in Table 5. Per capita income, energy intake, and energy from fat were not associated with patterns in either underweight or overweight status. The highest proportion of obesity was found among government officials while the lowest proportion was found among farmers.
Housewives are relatively more at risk for both undernutrition and obesity.
9.3 10.9 Farmer 2752 8.2 6.5 Housewife 146 11.6 15.1 Table 7 shows the distribution of BMI in connection with the dietary energy intake from animal products. 166 10.2 12.1 Observation of the influence of educational level on BMI revealed no clear trends, but less underweight individuals were seen in the illiterate group and in the highly educated group than in other groups. More overweight cases were seen only in the illiterate group, but no differences were found among other groups. The better results in China may well be related to the relatively even distribution of food in the country in past decades. Although the per capita food availability was not high, there are a set of policies in place to secure the basic food needs of the people.