For Asian Women, Weight-Loss Rule 1 Is Skip the Gym
Umera Chan recently paid $2,300 to a masseuse who promised to knead a few inches off her 116 pound, 5-foot-5 frame. She also pops diet pills with dinner. But the willowy size-two Singaporean wouldn't dream of going to the gym.
"We all want to be slimmer. But not muscular like Demi Moore," says Ms. Chan, a 28-year-old boutique manager. "I don't think that looks very nice."
Across Asia, already-thin women are downing prescription diet pills, and paying a fair amount of money to join slimming centers that promote weight loss through throbbing electric shocks and pinching "face-slimming" machines. The goal: slim down without exercise. For many Asians, the tanned, buff bodies prized by Americans have an unwelcome air of the working class.
Constance Seck, a 33-year-old Singaporean corporate travel agent, worked out with a trainer for a year after her second child was born but quit the three-day-a-week regimen when friends began to notice her leg muscles. "I looked bulky. Muscles popped out everywhere -- my shoulders, my legs. My body wasn't very feminine," she says.
At De Beaute slimming salon in Singapore, Ms. Seck recently slipped out of a red sweater and settled onto a bed in a dimly lighted room. A technician wheeled over a squat "electro-stimulation" machine, which zaps a mild current that causes muscles to contract, and clamped electrodes to her arms, stomach and thighs. With the press of a keypad, and Ms. Seck's limbs began to twitch. "It's gentle," Ms. Seck proclaimed.
Ms. Seck says she has lost 31 pounds since she joined De Beaute, for which she has appeared in before-and-after photographs. Recently, she became a spokesmodel for the five-year-old company, which runs three salons in Singapore. Cutting carbohydrates from her diet at the same time she started sessions here "may have helped speed things up," she adds.
The traditional Chinese ideal of beauty emphasized not just pale bodies but tiny feet and hands. Today, the feminine ideal of weak and wan remains, even as women gain independence through their jobs. For some, staying slim is a way to reconcile that, psychologists say. In some women's magazines, slimming products and services make up 50% of the ads, according to a new study by the Hong Kong Eating Disorders Association.
Almost half the women in Hong Kong and China who responded to a survey conducted in August by market-research firm Taylor Nelson Sofres felt they were overweight or obese, even though only a quarter actually were, by medical definition. In the past eight years, Dr. Sing Lee, founder of the Hong Kong Eating Disorders Center, has seen a 20-fold increase in eating disorders, including anorexia.
The region's fitness industry is starting to gain ground -- but not nearly as fast as sales of diet pills and gadgets. "No crash diet, no rigorous exercise, no supplements to take," proclaims the Prettislim slimming center in Singapore. Singapore has 70 such centers, but only 30 gyms. In Hong Kong, 36% of women who have tried shedding weight used slimming teas, pills and gels, according to market researcher ACNielsen.
Prescription diet drugs approved and sold in the U.S. and Asia are readily available over the counter in China and Thailand. Even in Hong Kong and Singapore, where doctors dispense as well as prescribe drugs, patients say they can get whatever drugs they want.
Advertisers in Hong Kong spent nearly $24 million on spots for diet pills and slimming products from January through August of this year alone -- a 27% increase over the same period last year, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Public health officials are trying to crack down on health claims made for products available without prescriptions. Last month, Hong Kong's Health Department recommended that the city's legislature overhaul regulations. If the law is passed, police could confiscate products that make any of 25 banned misleading claims, including "promote firm muscle and beautiful body curve" and "excrete excess fat."
Over the past year, Hong Kong secretary Catherine Fung, 42, has tried a range of exercise-free techniques to slim down from 112 pounds to her ideal 102. Most recently, she has been tightening her muscles with a machine that promises a two-hour workout in just 30 minutes by sending small electrical pulses to muscles through a hand-held device -- while she is lying down. "It's like ironing," she says. "You just put it over the places you want to firm."
Outside of the office, she and her friends meet up for dinner or shopping. "We're too busy for exercise," says Ms. Fung. But they do find time to pore through magazine articles on slimming and swap notes on the latest hot treatments. Later this month, she's attending a free lecture that promises to tell her how to get Xenical, a Roche prescription drug for the extremely obese.
A million Hong Kong women are customers at beauty and slimming center Fancl House, whose ads for "Extra Slim-Up" tonic feature the 5-foot-10, 120-pound movie star Gigi Leung. Crashing a bowling ball into a set of pins representing excess weight, Ms. Leung implores women to "break 'n' burn!" away flab.
"It's a very, very competitive market, and slimming centers have a bigger marketing budget," says Selina Short, the marketing vice president for California Fitness, the region's biggest gym chain with 50,000 female members across five countries.
But gyms are making their move. Last month, California Fitness brokered a joint marketing deal with Fancl. The slimming company came up with ads showing people at the gyms drinking Extra Slim-Up, while California Fitness sent invitations for free gym trials to 100,000 of Fancl's frequent customers.
"These women, who are so concerned about image, had never experienced exercise before," Ms. Short says.
亚洲爱美女性不爱健身房
身高5.5英尺，体重116磅的陈美(Umera Chan,音译)最近掏了2,300美元，请一位按摩师帮助她减肥。她还在用餐时服用减肥药。可这位苗条的新加坡女孩压根就没想过去健身房进行锻炼。
现年28岁的陈小姐是服装精品店的经理。她说："我们都想再瘦一点。但不是像戴米?摩尔(Demi Mooore)那样肌肉发达。那样不好看。"
虽然亚洲地区的女性已经很苗条了，她们仍在吃减肥药，并舍得花大把钞票加入瘦身中心。这些中心采用令人心惊的电击疗法和"瘦脸"仪器来帮助女性瘦身。她们的目标是：无须锻炼就可减肥。对于许多亚洲人来说，美国人所崇尚的棕褐色、肌肉型体形他们并不喜欢。
康丝坦斯?沙克(Constance Seck)现年33岁，是新加坡的一位旅游代理商。在生完第二个孩子后，她跟随一位教练进行一周三次的锻炼。可是，在朋友们注意到她腿上结实的肌肉之后，沙克停止了锻炼。她说："我看上去块头很大，浑身上下都是肌肉－－肩膀啊，腿部啊。我的身材不够柔美。"
沙克最近常光顾新加坡的De Beaute美容院。在一间光线朦胧的房间里，她脱去红色的毛线衫，躺在一张床上。一位美容师推过来一台能释放弱电流，让肌肉收缩的"电子刺激"仪器，并把电极夹在沙克的手臂、腹部和大腿上。美容师按动键盘，沙克的四肢就开始颤动。她说："感觉很轻柔"。
沙克表示，自从她加入De Beaute以来，她的体重已减轻了31磅。她还拍摄了减肥前和减肥后的照片。最近，沙克开始担任这家已有5年历史、在新加坡拥有3家分店的美容院的形像代言人。沙克补充说，从开始接受De Beaute的减肥治疗时起，她就减少了碳水化合物的摄入，这可能也起到了加速减肥的作用。
按照中国人的传统审美观，肌肤雪白、四肢纤细才是女性之美。虽然女性通过就业已经获得独立，但柔弱美的观念依然延续至今。心理学家指出，在一些人看来，保持苗条正是为了迎合这种观念。根据香港进食失调康复协会(Hong Kong Eating Disorders Association)的统计，在一些女性杂志里，减肥产品和服务的广告占广告总数的一半。
市场调研公司Taylor Nelson Sofres在8月份所做的一项调查显示，接受调查的香港和中国大陆女性中，有近一半认为自己超重或比较肥胖，尽管从医学角度来说，其中仅有四分之一的人偏胖。香港进食失调康复协会的创立者Sing Lee表示，在过去8年里，患上进食失调疾病的人数猛增了20倍，其中包括厌食症。
亚洲地区的健美业也逐步发展起来，但不像减肥药和相关减肥仪器那样深入人心。新加坡的美容中心Prettishlim的广告是－－无须拼命节食，无须大量运动，也无须进补。新加坡目前拥有70个类似的美容中心，但健身馆只有30个。根据市场调研公司AC尼尔森(ACNielsen)的统计，在香港，通过饮用减肥茶、服用减肥药丸和胶囊的女性占女性减肥总数的36%。
在中国和泰国，人们可在药店里随时买到美国和亚洲其他地区的处方减肥药。虽然在香港和新加坡必须由医生来开药，但病人们表示她们几乎想要什么，就能得到什么。
Nielsen Media Research的调查显示，仅在今年1到4月份，香港的广告商就花了近2,400万美元做减肥药和减肥产品的宣传，比上年同期增长了27%。
负责公众健康的政府官员试图打击那些非处方减肥产品的气焰。上个月，香港卫生署建议香港的立法者修改相关法律。如果新的法规被通过，香港警方可以没收那些使用"使肌肉更紧实，塑造曲线美"以及"排去多余脂肪"等25种误导性广告辞令的减肥产品。
现年42岁的方小姐(Catherine Fung)在香港做秘书。在过去的一年里，她通过各种无须运动的减肥手段使自己的体重从原先的112磅降到理想的102磅。最近，她又开始采用一种向肌肉传送微弱电脉冲的仪器来收紧肌肉。通过一个便携式的装置，方小姐只要躺下来就可以使用它了。该仪器声称使用30分钟就能相当于2小时的运动效果，方小姐说："它就像熨斗。你只要把它放在想要收紧的部位就可以了。"
下班之余，方小姐就和朋友们吃饭购物。她说："我们没有时间来进行锻炼。"但她们却有时间来研读杂志上关于减肥的文章，并就新近最流行的减肥方式交换心得。本月下旬，她还要参加一个免费讲座，学习获得罗氏公司(Roche)治疗重度肥胖症的处方药Xenical的方法。
在香港，光顾美容院Fancl House的女性有一百万。在为消脂纤饮Extra Slim-Up所做的广告中，主角是身高5.1英尺、体重120磅的影星梁咏琪(Gigi Leung)。她在片中把保龄球扔向一组代表超重的木瓶，号召女性"击碎脂肪、燃烧脂肪"。
身为California Fitness负责行销的副总裁，施林娜?肖特(Selina Short)说："这个市场的竞争非常非常激烈，美容院的行销预算要多一些。"California Fitness是亚洲地区最大的健美连锁机构，在5个国家拥有5万名女性会员。
不过，健美业也开始行动起来。上个月，California Fitness与Fancl达成了一项联合行销的协议。Fancl在广告中展示人们在健身馆里喝Extra Slim-Up，而California Fitness则向10万忠实的Fancl客户赠送免费的健身券。
肖特说："这些重视形像的女性过去从来不运动。"
