Local government officials in Guangdong, a province of 127 million people that’s home to manufacturing and tech giants, are urging companies to implement mandatory workout breaks, set up sports teams and find ways to motivate employees to keep fit.

And Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen has launched a competition to see who can lose the most weight in a month — through exercise and a balanced diet, both increasingly uncommon among beleaguered students, especially STEM majors.

“Our undergrad students are getting heavier each year, and the proportion who are overweight is rising among juniors and seniors,” said Dong Lunhong, director of physical education at the university. “We need to get everyone moving and staying in shape.”

The winner will get a prize worth several hundred dollars — including headphones and a massage gun — and bonus university credits. More than 1,000 students and staff members have signed up.

The weight loss drive is not exactly new in a country where waistlines have been rapidly expanding, but it has been turbocharged since the Chinese Communist Party made healthy weights a key priority at its National People’s Congress last month.

China has kick-started a three-year campaign to raise public awareness about obesity, with top health official urging more hospitals to offer weight management services, among other measures.

“Lifestyle intervention,” including promoting exercise and a healthy diet, will be “critical” to reverse the rising occurrence of cancer and other chronic diseases associated with obesity, Lei Haichao, director of the National Health Commission, said during China’s most important annual political meetings.

While it may take time to deliver results, the anti-obesity campaign will be helped by coordinated efforts from the government, businesses and the public, Lei added.

“It is very PRC style,” said Jennifer Bouey, chair of the department of international health at Georgetown University, using the abbreviation for China’s official name. “The government is in the role of a ‘parent’ and uses political and population-size movements to fight ‘social ill.’”

Obesity is a relatively new but fast growing headache in a nation that had long struggled to feed its people. When the National Institutes of Health declared obesity a disease in 1998, more people in China were undernourished (over 10 percent of the population) than obese (around 8 percent for adults).

As Chinese shifted to a high-protein, high-fat diet during three decades of strong economic growth, more than half of adults in China became overweight or obese, according to the National Health Commission.

Without proper intervention, the rate could exceed 70 percent by 2030, the commission estimated, approaching the proportion of people in the United States considered overweight. That could cost China’s health care system more than $58 billion a year, or more than a fifth of the country’s total annual medical expenditure.

In China, people with a body mass index (BMI) of over 24 are considered overweight and obese if they’re over 28. The U.S. standard is over 25 for overweight and over 30 for obesity.

China has a stricter measurement because East Asians have a higher percentage of body fat and higher risk of cardiometabolic disease even at relatively low BMI levels, said Pan Xiongfei, a professor at a Sichuan University-affiliated hospital who studies the effect of noncommunicable diseases.

But Chinese authorities have to overcome some recent history to change mindsets. As many as 30 million people died during the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward agricultural reform policies, introduced in 1958. As China developed in the 1990s, being fat came to be associated with being wealthy.

Even today, Chinese men with a spare tire don’t have a “beer belly,” they have the “belly of a general.” In some areas, pregnant women are still advised to maximize their nutritional intake and minimize physical activity, while chubby children are often considered a symbol of family prosperity.

That means Beijing must drive home the message that obesity is a disease, not a symbol of wealth and good health, Pan said.

“From a cultural and social perspective, this whole discussion about weight management can also, in a way, rectify some dated notions about overnutrition and physical activities,” he said.

The message, delivered in the grand political halls of Beijing, quickly made the rounds across social media platforms. A hashtag — “The country’s calling you to drop those pounds” — topped the trending topics and spurred a flood of memes on Weibo, the microblogging site.

Institutions around the country have quickly got on board, especially universities. In the southwest province of Yunnan, 92 colleges will issue a certificate of good health to graduates who get an average score of 80 percent in PE class, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Health authorities issued localized guidelines for weight-loss diets. A recommended summer menu for people in China’s southwest, known for their love of spicy and sour food, includes dishes like steamed egg and skim milk for breakfast, braised eel for lunch and small chicken stew and mashed potatoes for dinner.

There are seven versions for different regions, but they have something in a common: moderate use of oil, salt and sugar, and with a daily intake of no more than 1,600 calories.

Fitness influencers are having a field day. Magic Club, a weight-loss boot camp that bills itself as China’s largest, wasted no time in announcing new packages, complete with customized meals, private trainers and five-star hotel stays. A program priced at $1,800 (excluding accommodation) claims that participants can easily lose 22 pounds in 28 days.

But the biggest winners might be pharmaceutical companies that make weight loss drugs.

Novo Nordisk has not released sales figures since releasing Wegovy in China last year, but says it is seeing “a significant unmet medical need” in the prevention and treatment of obesity in China.

“Moving forward, we will continue to bring global innovative products and treatments into China … so that more patients will benefit from our medicines,” the company said in an emailed statement.

The company’s other main weight loss offering, Ozempic, accounted for almost three quarters of the Chinese market at the end of last year.

Beijing likes a solution that can target multiple problems, said Bouey of Georgetown — and this one could help boost the insipid economy if people start spending more on gyms and weight-loss drugs. “Highlighting the obesity trend might help boost domestic consumption on lifestyle changes,” she said.

But the government campaign “probably reflects social controls on gender norms” and might also reinforce the mainstream beauty standards of being slim, she added.

Lynne Liang, a 20-year-old college student in Guangzhou who has weighed more than 176 pounds since middle school, has been taking Wegovy since November after failing to keep the weight off with her previous efforts: low-carb dieting, intermittent fasting, daily gym trips, and even acupuncture.

She has since lost 24 pounds and is confident she will be able to bring her BMI down from 31 to below 24.

“People can be whatever body shape, and we shouldn’t judge. The look that I feel most comfortable with happens to be not too fat and not too thin,” Liang said.