Soybean Milk Plan to Be Promoted in SchoolsA program aimed to improve nutrition for school children with soybean milk drinking will be promoted across China, according to Tuesday's China Youth Daily. The Ministry of Education will be mainly responsible for the implementation of the program, called "students' soybean milk plan".Malnutrition has been a major health problem for the country's school children, the newspaper said. In 1995, nearly 40 percent of the country's school children suffered from malnutrition and lower weight, and currently the number of school children with poor nutrition still stands at 270 million. In some parts of the country, the average height of children aged between 6 to 15 years are 3.3 to six centimeters lower than the standard, and their average weight was 1.8 to 2.5 kilograms below the standard, the paper said. Official statistics also show that anemia is another malnutrition-related health problem. About 38 percent of the school boys and 37 percent of the girls suffer from the ailment. To tackle the problem, four government departments, including the Ministry of Education, initiated in October 1996 a pilot soybean action plan in the country's 22 primary and secondary schools. Eighteen months after the project was carried out, the average height of the participating children were 0.3 to 0.9 centimeters higher than that of those who did not drink soybean milk, and their overall health was improved as a result. |
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