Via Xinhuanet.

Sounds so promising huh? This is the result of a survey conducted from May 9 to 13 by China Youth Daily. People might cheer up on the conclusion that "obesity has taken the place of famine as one of the Chinese' top concerns."

But that's the real case? I'm so skeptical about the survey so let's just read it through.

The survey collected 3,858 responses in China's 33 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, including Hong Kong and Macao, and had 54.8 percent women participants and 72.4 percent youth aged from 20 to 30.

The sampling method was not mentioned in the news story. The reporter might think nothing of it or regard it as of no interest to readers. Therefore I can't get more informaiton on it but I'm 99.9% sure that it was not a probability sampling. I even don't expect it will be. Mail-based survey targeting CYD's readers is the most likely one. Or it might be telephone or the Internet survey. Anyway, any of the three ways will produce seriously biased sample--how much did the survey cover people living out of cities? I mean over 900 million farmer population? I don't think a significant portition of them are subscribers of CYD. Moreover, the sample was seriously biased toward younger people, say, those between 20-30. That is evident since the targeted readership of CYD is undoubtedly younger population.

It is fun to see that the reporter tried to emphasize the "generalizability" of the survey by stating "33 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, including Hong Kong and Macao" were covered. So was the sample in each province consistent with its population quote? I highly doubt about that.

The news story looks more like a joke than a survey. I'm sure not too many people will take it seriously but what is noteworthy is the over-optimism Chinese media hold about the well-being of Chinese people.