High school students grab fast food and snacks for lunch on Tuesday near their school in Shijingshan district.

Nearly 90 percent of the capital's high school students have some kind of health problem, according to Beijing health authorities, which have blamed intensive study for examinations on the continuous decline in the health of high school students in recent years.

The lack of public attention to this issue has caused it to become an ongoing problem, the Beijing Physical Examination Center told the Global Times Tuesday.

The center, which comes under Beijing Health Bureau, released the Beijing Physical Examination Statistics Report for 2011 on Monday.

The study focused on the increase in the numbers of people affected by nearsightedness, blood pressure problems, and obesity, which all witnessed a rise to some extent.

Obesity is becoming a pressing problem in the teen population, the report said.

The report said that only 13 percent of high school graduates were in perfect health, a figure that has not changed much in recent years. The center examined over 80,000 high school graduates in 2011 for the report.

Sun Liguang, the director of Beijing Physical Examination Center in Xicheng district, told the Global Times that the center has conducted annual investigations since 2003, but this is the first time it has released the results to the public.

According to the report, in 2011, only 13.39 percent of students were in absolute good health and 86.59 percent just passed the basic health condition standard. Sun said that in order to be one of the 13.39 percent, several standards must be met, one of which was having good eyesight.

"Take nearsightedness for instance, the number of students with nearsightedness was 83.69 percent in 2010, which increased to 86.15 percent in 2011," he said.

"The heavy burden of studying for the gaokao [college entrance examinations] is the fundamental cause of the decline in students' health. I think that either parents or schools pay more attention to exam grades than student health," said Sun.

In terms of obesity, 5,992 or 9.54 percent of male students and 2,799 female students, or 7.09 percent were facing this problem, the Beijing Times said Tuesday, quoting the report. Blood pressure problems were increasing, but overall, the number of students with this problem is relatively low, fewer than one percent.