From May 1st, 2007, foreigners adopting Chinese orphans will not only have to be married, under the age of fifty, have graduated from high school, and possess $80,000 in family assets, but will also have to be physically fit. This past December, the Chinese government announced a new, more restrictive set of regulations for adoptive applicants, and in doing so added "obesity" to a list of banned parent characteristics. In response to these regulations, international adoption agencies are already denying applications from prospective parents who they deem are not fit enough to adopt.

The new regulations will require both prospective parents to have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 40. The BMI is a scale that measures body fat according to weight and height. In the United States, a BMI of over 25 is considered overweight, and over 30 considered obese. A BMI under 40 sets the maximum acceptable weight for a 5''5' female at 240 pounds and for a 6''0' male at 295 pounds.

The Chinese international adoption program, which has been allowing adoptions consistently since 1993, is recognized as a leading model for foreign adoptions. In recent years, the adoption of Chinese children, especially girls -- since most of China's 573,000 orphans are girls as a result of China's one child policy -- has surged. In 1995, American families adopted 2,130 children from China. Ten years later, by 2005, the number had almost quadrupled to 7,906. Worldwide, China placed 13,000 orphans with foreign families last year. Compared with other countries, Chinese foreign adoption law is considered fairly lenient, even with these heightened regulations. Many African nations require foreign parents to live in the country for a period of time in order to make adoption permissible, while other countries including the United Arab Emirates, entirely forbid foreign adoption.