BEIJING: More than 20 people tried and failed for two hours to lift up a man weighing about 220kg who had fallen over in the street in central China, according to a newspaper report.
The man was eventually lifted after a police officer got him to roll onto a stretcher and more than 10 people levered him up, the Chutian Metropolis Daily reported.
The man, aged 27, whose full name was not given, fell in the street on Monday in Wuhan in Hebei province after he was returning home from a visit to hospital, according to the article.
The man has been obese since he was a child, but has become significantly heavier over the past seven years.
He put himself on a diet at the beginning of the Lunar New Year last month, but ended up in hospital with acute gastritis on Sunday.
After he was discharged on Monday, he slipped and fell, the report said.
Obesity has become an increasing public health issue in China in recent years, with the country topping the US for having the most obese citizens in the world, according to a study published by The Lancet medical journal last year.
The report said China was home to 43,200,000 obese men and 46,400,000 obese women, accounting for 16.3 per cent and 12.4 per cent of obese men and women around the world.
The problem has been blamed on poor diet and lack of exercise.
The World Obesity Federation reported last year that China was on track to have the greatest number of overweight children by 2025. The study said that the mainland was expected to have 48.5 million overweight youngsters by that date, almost the population of Spain. - South China Morning Post/Asia News Network
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