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No “Metabo” citizens for them. “Metabo” is a Japanese code word for overweight.
* What if your employer said you were too fat to work there?
* What if your government said slim down or pay for it?
* What if you had to get on a scale every few month as part of your job?
Sounds crazy? Maybe to some.
But the Japanese are turning this into a reality. Japan has traditionally been a very health conscious society and rarely dealt with obesity. The only overweight people were sumo wrestlers.
Today the Japanese government is concerned about the rising costs of healthcare. Things like high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes and cholesterol have never been a problem for this society but now it is creeping into their clinics and hospitals.
What is their solution? An aggressive campaign of mandatory weight and size checks for the citizens of the country. Under a national law that came into effect this past year, ALL companies and local governments must now check their employees for health risks.
But not in the usual way.
They will measure the waistlines of Japanese employees between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkup. Anyone who exceeds the pre determined government limits, a waist line of 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, will receive detention for three months. Not like jail time detention but think after school detention.
They have 3 months to lose weight on their own. If they still don’t meet the waistline requirements they will be provided dieting guidance to help them lose the weight. If after 6 months they still can’t get it taken care of they will be directed toward more weight loss education if there is no improvement.
Pretty radical, right? Hang on to your girdle!
To reach the national goal of decreasing the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years, and 25 percent over the next seven years, the Japanese Ministry of Health will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets.
Imagine if your employer was fined because you were fat?!
But wait, there’s more. Some local municipalities are mandating that the families and children must be checked as well. What if your local taxes increased because there were too many fat people in your town?!
Perhaps the most telling comment came from a professor in Tokyo who felt that the campaign was unnecessary in Japan because they are so slender already, but “if you did this in the United States, there would be benefits, since there are many Americans who weigh more than 100 kilograms” (220 pounds).
A recent report shows the average waist size of an American Caucasian male was 39 inches and a female was 36.5. Both radically lose in the Japanese system. The International Diabetes Federation claims that these numbers are not that far above the levels that would cause an increase in the risk of diabetes. Nevertheless, people are at a health risk if they reach these numbers.
Wanna bet the U.S. government, as well as the health insurance providers, will be watching this program very closely? Suffice it to say you might want to get on the ball before you are told to get on the ball.