OBJECTIVES: Obesity is a cause of more deaths than malnutrition in most high/middle income countries. Asians are especially likely to accumulate intra-abdominal fat increasing a risk of obesity-related comorbidities. The aim of our research was to assess the epidemiology and burden of obesity in China. METHODS: International and Chinese medical databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, wanfangdata.com, cqvip.com, cnki.net, docin.com, wenku.baidu.com) were searched to collect information regarding epidemiology and burden of obesity. RESULTS: Our search retrieved 34 relevant publications. The prevalence of obesity among Chinese adults oscillated between 2.7% and 13.1% in rural and urban areas, respectively. Most often the overall prevalence in combined rural and urban populations was reported in the range between 4% and 11.6%. Epidemiological trends reveal an alarming increase in the prevalence of obesity among Chinese adults, which increased from 0.3%-2.9% in the late '80s and early '90s, to 3%-11.4 in the first decade of 21st century. This increase translates into a growing number of obesity-related diseases, such as hypertension reaching 18.8% in 2002 and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) affecting 2.6% population. In Beijing, hypertension and T2DM were 25% and 7.7%, respectively. In the Chinese population, severe obesity increases the risk of death by 29%. The growing costs of obesity is a burden on healthcare. The estimated direct costs of obesity in the year 2000 were nearly $6 billion, while the indirect costs associated with loss of productivity exceeded $43 billion, corresponding to 0.48% and 3.58% of gross national product (GNP), respectively. The estimates for productivity loss are rising dramatically to $106 billion in 2025, which represents an increase to  8.73% of China’s GNP. CONCLUSIONS: The growing rates of obesity and obesity-related comorbidities is a rapidly growing economic burden on the Chinese health care system and calls for prevention and treatment strategies.