The Communist Approach to Obesity

“Here’s one way to fight obesity: mandatory exercise, as Beijing has commanded again, after a three-year break. ‘The short-term goal is to involve 60% of the workforces in Beijing by 2011, and 70% of the workforces of the government,’ says Zhang Yujing of the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions. ‘We want all state-owned enterprise workers to have restarted this routine by next year.’ The city’s residents seem to support the policy: ‘I think this [resumption] is really necessary, because people’s living habits are very bad now. They sit in the office the whole day,’ said one 30-year-old, who works in marketing. ‘I have my own exercise plan, but I never put it into practice because I am too busy.’”

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/the-communist-approach-to-obesity/