China possesses a growing and powerful consumer culture that is largely made up of urban youth born since 1980. These children, for the most part, have been considerably impacted by two public policies implemented in the reform era after Mao’s death in 1976: the one-child policy and the open-door policy. These two policies have altered this generation’s cultural footprint within the culturally constituted world of China in ways that researchers are coming to realize. In this article, we explore public policy impacts on youth consumer culture as it relates to the body and attempt to provide a path for consumer researchers and international marketing researchers moving forward in their understanding of China and its young consumers.
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