To reduce obesity, more weight is being put on sport in China’s high-school entrance exam

Tracy Gao, the mother of a sixth-grade boy in Shanghai, China, is concerned about her son’s fitness.

“He eats a lot and doesn’t like to do anything active. Even walking a few hundred metres or jogging a short distance would make him feel short of breath,” she said, adding that the boy was also short-sighted.

In her son’s school, scheduled physical education classes have tended to be given over to academic subjects and pupils have been told to rest indoors during breaks rather than go to the playground, Gao explained.

“It’s the same in most Shanghai schools,” she said. “The schools’ thinking is that they don’t want to be responsible for accidents that happen when kids are playing.”