Big (!) in Japan
YOU KNOW ATTITUDES ARE SHIFTING when, in the land of huge sumo wrestlers, ubiquitous jolly, fat-bellied tanuki and laughing buddhas, the size of your waist becomes a matter of legal concern.
I’ve been following with interest and, to be sincere, with some dismay, the recent developments of the “metabo-mania” in the local society. Metabo - the Japanese just can’t resist to this temptation of shortening words - stands for metabolic syndrome, a “combination of medical disorders that increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes.”(1)
Nothing spectacular to this point, you’ll say. Most societies have their share of, shall we say, well-built members, and even the above mentioned word might sound funny to your ears. But from what I can tell with regard to its daily, accepted usage, “metabo” is nothing more than a funky replacement for the plain and ugly “fat”. And I don’t have any knowledge yet of other countries steering their citizens toward re-education if they don’t loose weight in a given time.(2)
Concerning the first aspect, it shouldn’t come as a shock that many people use words without a clue as of their meaning. The metabolic syndrome is a medical disorder with an extremely complex pathophysiology and with a clear cause yet to be discovered… But hey, let’s just toss it around, what the heck! Why bother to check and understand what we’re talking about?!
As for the second aspect, apparently - and at official levels at least - everything seems to be revolving around the soaring costs of medical care facing an aging nation.(3) Reports in the news on how businesses exploit this initiative and benefit from it are still scarce, but I bet a new market is on the making…
In the end, people here seem to be taking the government’s law-backed initiative at face value, but jumping on the wagon, any wagon, is not unheard of when coming from Japanese. On the other hand, I think I might have a problem with that mandatory annual checkup to have my waistline measured. And my problem lies in my head, not in my waist!
For I can already hear the booming voice crumbling upon me: “Citizen, you exceed the new government-prescribed limit for male waistlines by 0.9 centimeters! You are given three months to lose weight, or further re-education program must be followed. Comply!”
[_____NOTES_____]
(1) Metabolic syndrome on Wikipedia
(2) Japan, seeking trimmer citizens, decides to measure millions of waistlines, by Norimitsu Onishi
(3) Watching waistlines: Japan Inc. tackles battle of the bulge in new campaign, The Associated Press
