If you want to fight fat the TCM way, you should eat foods to promote a healthy spleen ¡ª like Chinese pearl barley, known as Job's tears ¡ª and drink lots of Pu'er tea. Both are also diuretics.

A sun top, miniskirt and high-heel sandals - that's the outfit that catches men's attention and other girls' envy on the streets in summer. In order to show off their figures in skimpy clothes, girls started their weight-loss battles months ago, but it's never too late to lose weight.

Drinking slimming tea (a laxative), staying on a diet, and going to the gym frequently are widely used weight-loss methods. But eating certain foods or being pierced by fine silver needles may also help you to get rid of excessive weight.

Most people believe that obesity results from eating too much, which is certainly true in most cases. But it fails to explain why some people gain weight even though they eat little and drink lots of water while others keep slim though they eat a big dinner every day.

"It is not simply the case that the more you eat, the more weight you gain," says Dr Zhang Zhongyi, deputy director of the Acupuncture Department of Yueyang Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital. "Whether your stomach and spleen work well plays a much more important role."

According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the spleen, together with the stomach, digest and absorb nutrients (the spleen function in TCM differs from that in Western medicine). TCM holds that the spleen is responsible for sending the nutrients from the stomach to all the organs, and also for expelling excessive body fluid. If the spleen doesn't function well, excessive body fluid will collect and turn into fat.

Fat not only collects on muscles, destroying a nice figure, but also on organs and in the blood, which can cause health problems.

Fatty liver is common among fat people and can lead to cirrhosis if patients fail to correct their diet. Links are also found between obesity and the "three highs" (hypertension, high blood cholesterol and high blood sugar), which may contribute to cerebral vascular disease.

"The function of the organs, including the spleen, declines with aging. That's why most middle-aged and old people find themselves gaining weight easily," says Dr Zhang. "As for young people, unhealthy eating habits may cause malfunction of the stomach and spleen and leads to fat collection."