Taking her place next to some gym equipment, Yang Chi’ao waits to be called by an instructor at a weight-loss camp in China, where over half of adults are overweight.
These facilities – boasting strict daily exercise regimens, mandatory trips to the scales and rigid surveillance to guard against snacking – have popped up across China as it grapples with a growing obesity crisis.
Yang, 23, quit her teaching job earlier this year and signed up for a weight-loss camp on the outskirts of southwestern megacity Chengdu.
There will definitely be people who secretly want to buy food. I’ve had the idea but never succeeded because the coaches keep following me.
She has since followed a rigorous regime of diet and exercise.
She was one of around 60 people who turned out early to train, a large poster looming overhead extolling their goal: “Become thin! Become beautiful! Become refined!”
