Height of Vietnamese lowest in Asia

However, the height could be improved with a reasonable diet, experts say.

For the past 30 years, the height of the Vietnamese people has improved but very slowly, with only 1 cm increase in 10 years.

The height of women was also very low, close to 154 cm, according to Dr. Le Bach Mai, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Nutrition.

Dr. Mai said that the Vietnamese people’s height was the lowest in Asia. Many studies have shown that the development of the child’s height depends on genetics (20%), nutrition, sports training and environment (80%).

In fact, the traditional meals of Vietnamese people have changed positively but are still imbalanced. Demand for carbonated soft drinks is on the rise.

"Some suggested that carbonated soft drinks do not affect health; this is not true," said Dr. Mai.

“Soft water, besides natural sugars in foods, is often included with glucose or fructose. These sugars provide easy kcal. A soft drink can contains up to 36g sugar. As announced on the manufacturer's label, 100 ml of soft water create 42 kcal. The problem is that consumers rarely read tiny texts on the label. Besides, no one buys a soft drink can and drinks only 100ml. That means a 300 ml can provides nearly 140 kcal, while it takes 45 minutes to walk to consume 100 kcal," Dr. Mai said.

The experts also said that these drinks make the body lose calcium. Mai proposed a luxury tax on soft drinks and carbonated soft drinks.

The percentage of overweight and obese children in Vietnam has increased nine times in 10 years and now accounts for 6.3% of all children.