Students monitored for weight problems

Beijing health authorities will spend a year monitoring the overweight and obesity rate in the city's schools as part of an effort to reduce the number of fat children.

From September 2014 to July 2015, the obesity rate of students in the city was 15.7 percent, an increase of 5.6 percent over the same period the year before, according to the Beijing Health and Family Planning Commission

The commission announced that it would cooperate with the Beijing Municipal Education Commission in a weight-control project - from elementary to high school - at some pilot schools beginning this month.