In Japan, That Donut Could Cost You Your Job
To curtail Japan's overweight population, the Japanese health ministry recently mandated that all waistlines among its 56 million workers over age 40 be below “regulation size” of 33.5 inches (for men). Any company failing to bring its employees’ weight under control--as well as the weights of their family members--will be fined up to 10% of its earnings by the government.
According to government officials, 27 million Japanese--about half of all adult workers--have health indices (cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and BMI) that don’t meet ideal numbers, and will be targeted for mandatory medical intervention. The director of the Medical Urban Clinic in Osaka, Toshio Mochizuki, says he is concerned about the new movement. “I’m worried that the overweight will start to be shunned at the workplace and these new rules will make no one want to hire them,” he said. Read the full article here.
--AndreaLeigh
Morgan on April 08, 2008 at 04:38 PM
I don't really see this as surprising as a trend, although 33.5 inches? Seinfeld or below I guess.
Anyway, if you give government control of your healthcare, the logical next step is for government to direct you in how to stay healthy-- what to eat, how often to exercise, how much TV to watch. Maybe it'll help people wake up to how much of their lives they want in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. In my case: none.
piperj on April 08, 2008 at 04:45 PM
Wonder if there is a Sumo exception?
M. Simon on April 08, 2008 at 04:50 PM
One size fits all?
Jeff on April 08, 2008 at 05:11 PM
I guess it really depends on where they measure... my waist may come in at 33 or so inches for pants, but my gut hangeth over....
Brock on April 08, 2008 at 05:42 PM
Not even a sliding scale adjusted for height?
And a waste size is a lousy way to do this. It's an indirect indicator at best. A much better test would be a blood test to look at insulin levels, how people react to eating food, etc.
Blood tests are hard though, I'll admit. If they want a easy to measure figure, it's better to get a ratio than a static measurement. Waste-to-hip is the best indicator for women and waist-to-shoulder is the best indicator for men.
pst314 on April 08, 2008 at 06:20 PM
"I’m worried that the overweight will start to be shunned"
It would be much better to start shunning people who advocate such totalitarian measures.
Frege on April 08, 2008 at 07:20 PM
I'm just shocked 56 million people work for the health ministry. But seriously, as the first commenter noted, this is what awaits us all once the government foots the bill and healthcare is finally "free".
Shaky Barnes on April 09, 2008 at 03:43 AM
But keep in mind we're talking about Japan. Have you seen what they eat? When you live on a diet of fish eyes and squid tentacles, not too hard to keep under 33.5" waist.
Pam Arrant on April 09, 2008 at 03:52 AM
I am completely outraged that the federal government sees fit to outlaw overweight for its citizens. As far as the commentor said, it is bound to keep people from being hired and eventually they will undergo a crisis in the workplace. Not to mention, who is say how they "lose the weight"? In my opinion, it is a perfect diagnose for people and women in general to become anorexic or bulimic. I think that they will then see how high medical expenses will expand. I also agree with the other commenters in regards to having the government manage healthcare as this is bound to happen here in the United States. The federal government is already so involved in just about every aspect of our life, this cannot be far from the future. While I do agree that being lean and in shape is much more healthy it is still my right as an individual to weight exactly what I want regardless of the health issues.
Clyde on April 09, 2008 at 05:42 AM
What about the sumo wrestlers? I doubt if ANY of them has a waistline within half a meter of 33.5 inches!
Emily on April 09, 2008 at 08:58 AM
Whether the government should be allowed to do this or not, I don't care. At least they are doing something. The American government needs to make some effort to help curb the obesity problem here. But yea, it shouldn't cost them their jobs, or their employers to be fined.
Brian Wohlgemuth on April 09, 2008 at 10:36 AM
And what really needs to be done Emily? Hate to say this, but attacking people for being fat is like attacking people for the color of their skin. While a good chunk of people could do with a bit more exercise, there are numerous hormonal and medical problems which cause obesity that are often ignored.
Maybe they will make a minimum/maximum height requirement as well...
Deeindc on April 09, 2008 at 02:49 PM
I guess that kills plans for any Bear convention in Tokyo!
Eric on April 09, 2008 at 03:12 PM
Pam - Japan does not have a federal government; it has a unitary government that holds the national sovereignty. There are no "states" that could have federated. The government of Japan is the national government, but not a federal government, just as in France. Confederations of states, such as Cananda, Australia, and the US, create federal governments.
Duncan on April 09, 2008 at 03:13 PM
It's not quite that simple Brian, though I agree with your larger point. It's true that for some people it is very difficult to avoid becoming overweight or obese, given a particular environment, but that qualifier implies that it is, even in these cases, governed by behavior. But some people, for whatever reason, have a very strong predisposition toward certain behaviors. Rather than skin color, it might best be compared to smoking or alcoholism, though it is probably harder to overcome than either of those behaviors as one cannot swear off food entirely. Many smokers and alcoholics quit, but I am not sure that many would be able to smoke or drink moderately over the long term.
Japan is an interesting case. Until quite recently there were very, very few overweight Japanese. This is partially because of the nature of the traditional Japanese diet, but it is also partially because food has always been very expensive in Japan. Even now the average Japanese household spends about 3 times as high a percentage of income on food as the average US household. This is partly because Japan is an island, but it is also because Japan is very protectionist (not just because of government regulation, but also because there is a tendency among Japanese to consider non-Japanese food products inherently inferior to Japanese products) and has a distinctly autarkic bent to its policies, particularly when it comes to rice.
But cheap fast food has become much more common in Japan over the last couple of decades, which has led to some interesting results. The Japanese are becoming taller, and I suspect that Japanese girls are experiencing menarche earlier now than they were 20 years ago. I expect that in another 20 years we will see a corresponding increase in breast cancer rates in Japan- this will be exacerbated by the fact that Japanese women tend to have fewer children these days. On the plus side Japanese bust sizes are also increasing at a rapid rate.
MNPundit on April 09, 2008 at 03:27 PM
To be honest, I would appreciate some outside intervention in terms of my waistline.
Erasure25 on April 09, 2008 at 04:16 PM
This might be going too far from an American standpoint, but not really from a Japanese standpoint where many corporations already have institutionalized exercise programs.
Do you know how much obesity costs us taxpayers? A lot. It's pretty obvious that, left to our own devices, we can't be trusted to be solely responsible for our own health. Obesity among 10 year olds is no laughing matter.
This is hardly a totalitarian measure by Japanese standards. Rewarding good health and encouraging people to not be obese is a good thing. I do not like that my tax dollars have to pay for someone's Mcdonald's and Coca-Cola addiction.
Emily on April 09, 2008 at 05:08 PM
Well Brian, for starters, they could eliminate soda and candy from schools. There was just a experiment done in Philly which did that. There's no point in letting children start off eating that crap from the beginning. But the schools would rather make money. They`d rather eliminate P.E. and the arts to save a few dimes. Educating people on how to eat healthy would be a good start. It's better than doing nothing. Yes, there are people out there who can't help it, but the majority of people are just lazy. I wasn't attacking those that can't help it, but those that can. This wasn't such a widespread problem decades ago, before Krispy Kreme and fast food places wanted to fill their greedy littles hands with international money.
Fred on April 09, 2008 at 06:04 PM
Wait. Japan has a weight problem? I thought that was only in the U.S.A. that we have those issues!
Bob Munck on April 09, 2008 at 06:46 PM
Your blog entry may be a bit misleading. The article implies that a waistband bigger than 85 cm is just one indicator among several. It's probably similar to the way that a blood sugar level greater than 125 indicates the possibility but not the certainty of diabetes. It's possible, for example, that someone 200 cm high with a 90 cm waist would pass their test.
Duncan on April 09, 2008 at 09:35 PM
Erasure: You're right that it's not a particularly totalitarian measure by Japanese standards, but I'm not sure that that says great things about Japanese standards. Don't get me wrong- I'm pretty fond of Japan actually. But I find Japanese society overly regimented in a lot of respects, and I think that a lot of Japanese suffer unduly from the burden of meeting Japanese standards. A million hikikomori can't be wrong.
You say: "Do you know how much obesity costs us taxpayers? A lot. It's pretty obvious that, left to our own devices, we can't be trusted to be solely responsible for our own health."
Actually, I don't know how much it costs us as taxpayers. I think it would be difficult to determine that. One thing you have to recognize is that most people are going to need expensive care at some point, and that the healthiest people are likely to need, in the long run, more care.
As I said, I'm not sure about the costs of obesity, but I find the parallel with arguments about smokers striking. "It's pretty obvious that" smokers cost taxpayers a lot of money. Like many other "obvious" conclusions, this one is entirely wrong. Smokers save taxpayers a great deal of money by dying young. If we were only concerned with saving taxpayer money we would be giving free packs of Marlboros to every 10 year old- think of it as an indirect "Logan's Run" initiative.
And Emily: I doubt that removing soda from schools would have much effect (particularly since fruit juice would likely remain- if you are concerned only with body composition, as we are in this discussion, juice is actually worse than soda, as it does not come in diet form.) The problem is that humans are "designed" for a calorie-scarce environment. Given an abundance of cheap calories a lot of people are going to wind up being obese. They wind up so because of behaviors, so it is not completely out of their control. But, for some people, the effort required is pretty superhuman- I think the analogy of a dedicated smoker trying to cut back to two a day while always having a full pack is apposite.
Tal on April 10, 2008 at 01:36 PM
1. There's no such thing as getting cancer from "secondary fat"
2. That obesity epidemic? Bogus: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23466006/
What really happened was that the BMI definition of overweight was changed from 27 to 25 in 1997, thus changing the statistics overnight, making it seem like there was some major uptick. And there wasn't. And isn't.
What there is is a slight overall increase in TOTAL body size. We are taller, broader, have larger hands, feet and heads, and denser bones than people even 50 years ago. Oh, and we live longer. By a decade.
3. Stress is a far greater contributor to disease than weight. So where are the government programs to give everyone reasonable working hours, a living wage, a shorter commute, free mental health care and four weeks of vacation?
4. People who are moderately overweight and fit live longer than people who are thin and unfit.
5. Lifespan between "normal weight" and "obese" isn't measurably different when other confounding factors (genes, lifestyle) are taken into consideration. One would have to be well over 300 lbs to have a shorter lifespan based on weight alone, and even then, the difference is only 4 years.
All this to day: Weight alone is absolutely, completely irrelevant when talking about health, lifespan and potential public health costs. Lifestyle--especially stress, exposure to pollutants, malnutrition--is what really matters.
Anyone still questioning this? Look up the Health at Every Size movement (HAES). The real studies about this issue--not the ones subsidized by the diet industry--paint an entirely different picture than what we're being sold.
Mondy on April 10, 2008 at 07:47 PM
The "10 percent of earnings" thing is wrong. The actual facts: Companies would have to pay higher contributions to Japan's equivalent of Social Security for the elderly, in some cases up to 10 percent of their current contributions, on a case-by-case basis, after a review of their health assistance and education efforts by the government, if their employees average waist/BMI is over the limit. This is considerably less than 10 percent of earnings (or even 1 percent) for the vast majority of profitable companies.
Tal: You're perpetuating another urban legend. The BMI never changed. Yes, the range of BMI measurements that are labeled "overweight" was brought in line with the WHO's system. But this doesn't mean there was an "uptick." The BMI is the same, and any trend graphs are based on the current WHO definition of normal-overweight-obese based on the BMI numbers. There are no charts of statistics that anyone is distributing that mix the old overweight range and the WHO range. Think of it this way: when a company has a negative stock split, is there an "uptick" in the price? Does the stock chart show a discontinuity? No, because everything is adjusted for the new price. That's the same with BMI. When the CDC says there is an increase in obesity, they mean there is an increase in the percentage of people whose BMI is over 30, not in the percentage of people whose "label" under contemporaneous definitions has changed.
Jackie on April 11, 2008 at 05:06 AM
I was concerned, that this means Super Mario will have to now go on a diet. O_o
Chris G on June 24, 2008 at 01:17 PM
"While I do agree that being lean and in shape is much more healthy it is still my right as an individual to weight exactly what I want regardless of the health issues."
I agree, but I think the whole point is that once health problems arise because of that weight, you are now a patient and in the eyes of the people flipping the medical bill (i.e. the government), an expense. Your right is now their problem. That is what they are trying to address, not to instill more laws on the people. Less weight, less medical expenses ... in theory, although it makes sense even in theory.