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Japan Imposes "Fine On Fat"
An anonymous reader writes "A recently-introduced law in Japan requires all businesses to have mandatory obesity checks (video link) for all their employees and employees' family members over the age of 40, CNN reports. If the employee or family member is deemed obese, and does not lose the extra fat soon, their employer faces large fines. The legislated upper limit for the waistline is 33.5" for men, and 35.5" for women. Should America adopt universal health insurance, could we live to see the same kind of individual health regulations imposed on us by the government? By comparison, the average waistline in America in 2005 was 39 inches for men, 37 inches for women."
if it gets rid of that fat fuck CowboyNeal, I'm all for it.
Do you smoke?
Do you drink?
Drug tests?
Any of this sound familiar in a survey from your insurance application or work orientation pack?
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
The question is specious: there are dozens of countries with public health care, but they don't have such crazy restrictions (including your neighbour, Canada). I chalk it up to a Japanese culture that accepts such a standard. And don't give me the fat-people-will-cost-me-more in a public system argument, because they are costing you more in a private system, unless fatter people at your work pay more for their insurance plan...
Definitely sounds like a big problem.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
What about the sumo wrestlers?! Don't they get a say!?
While "big boned" is a complete cop out, there are people with naturally larger waists... or worse yet, hormonal/glandular issues...
http://billstclair.com/DoingFreedom/000623/df.0600.fa.lipidleggin.html Written in 1978...scary and well worth reading (it's a short story, won't take long to read)
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Well wow, that's just dumb. Didn't they read that smokers and fat people cost the government less thank skinny people?. The study was done by the Dutch, and their healthcare is mandatory private (like people are talking about for the US) supplemented by socialized healthcare for people who are elderly or unable to otherwise function, so I'd think they'd have a pretty good idea of what the costs are. //Sorry about the stupid dashes. Goddamn system isn't taking my paragraph breaks.
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Sure, the smokers and fat people have more health problems, but they have the decency to drop dead and not linger on the government dime, senile and incontinent, for a few extra decades.
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I try to keep healthy, but when I hit the point where I'm not enjoying life much any more, I'm eating whatever the hell I want, taking up heroin. I'll be mainlining viagra II, and having sex with the kind of scary women that'd have sex with me! You see these articles coming out of Florida about old guys getting arrested for trying to buy drugs, just for the hell of it, and I don't understand what the problem is. This society is so fricking weird; god forbid you threaten your own ability to live to 110.
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Life is one of those things where it's really about quality, not quantity.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
So, when do they extend this to a minimum female bust line?
If you don't have at least a 34C, your employer provided insurance will mandate a boob job.
I'm thinking the gov't inspector position on that law will be a highly coveted spot.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Once the government is in charge of health care, they have a responsibility to manage every part of your life which effects your health. You may only eat and drink healthy products. No more smoking. Safe cars only. No motorcycles! These will all be necessary to combat the increased cost that government control of health care will create.
Does this apply to foreign workers? For instance, if I were to go work in Japan for a year or two after I'm 40, would my employer be fined if I didn't shrink my 37 to a 33.5?
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
I had the impression this sport was hugely popular over there (got that from reading Freakonomics). Will they make an exception for wrestlers?
How can you have a single upper-limit on waist sizes? Are all people in Japan the same height or are short people allowed to be fatter than tall ones?
And how is the employer really responsible for their employees' weight? OK sure, there's going to be a bit of correllation between the general health attitude at your job and your own weight and from what I understand there's more of a culture for this thing in Japan but it still seems like a big leap to make in what a company is responsible for and subsequently what an employee has to answer to his employer about. Can constantly fat people be fired for costing their company too much in fines?
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
"Fine on fat" has nothing to do with universal health coverage. It has everything to do with bad policy and even worse laws (not to mention stupid lawmakers).
There are tons of countries in the world today with universal health coverage who don't engage in that kind of stupid law making.
Then again, it is mostly accepted these days that being overweight is bad for you, in all kind of different ways, so maybe a tax on fat is not such a bad idea, especially if human fat is recycled into bio-fuel. Fight Club, anyone?
Besides, wait until they apply this law to the sumotori... and the howls of outrage from the sumo-loving japanese public... :-)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Watashi wa rikishi desu, you insensitive clod!
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I don't think this has anything to do with people being overweight at its core. This is more likely an anti western culture move to try to stop Japan from becoming more like America. There have been similar proposals made to try to make western style toilets more expensive so they will not be commonly used. Older Japanese are generally worried that Japan is losing its culture and that tends to lead to strange laws made in an attempt to stop the so called slide. The law itself is rather stupid idea though and I don't think it's likely to be in place 5 years down the road unless the penalty is a lot lighter than it sounds at face value.
How about some kind of mandatory test (every couple years or so) in which people are placed in various life-threatening situations involving wild animals, obstacle courses, etc.?
Those who exhibit a reasonable level of fitness would have a reasonable chance of evading death, while those who "let themselves go" are much more likely to end up as food for some kind of large carnivore or as feedstock for an industrial wood chipper.
Have the whole thing take place in some kind of a large controlled environment with lots of cameras and audio pickups, then sell advertising rights to the 24/7 broadcast of all the mayhem.
All upside. No downside
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Yes they are. Deviants are stretched or squashed as needed, and beaten for their insolence.
Increasing the cost of obesity reduces obesity. We don't know how much it would, but studies from cigarette taxes show that increases costs decrease consumption of even highly desirable things.
Obesity increases fuel consumption -- the obese eat more (more food transport and production fuel use) and weigh more (more transport costs in themselves). They eat 18% more, according the Lancet. The Lancet goes on to suggest that reducing obesity would reduce global warming.
And yes, their health care costs us -- we should be getting some of that back.
A small tax (in stores, vending machines and restaurants) on foods which digest quickly seems like a FANTASTIC idea. Not a big deal for someone that eats a few Snickers bars every month, but a noticeable pain for someone who eats them every day.
I was in japan about 9 years ago and I went back just a few months ago. I was amazed at the difference. There were far more people that I would categorize as overweight. No where near as many as in America and nobody that appeared to be obese, but it was quite a shift in a decade.
To go along with that I noticed that there were far more fast food places and unlike my first trip, restaurants did not list the calories on items the way they had in the past.
On the other hand I noticed that smoking was down and there were more non smoking areas (including on the streets of Tokyo) but those regulations were often ignored.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Even with private health insurance, those who live unhealthy lifestyles have the net effect of increasing insurance premiums for everyone.
The insurance companies maintain profitability by selecting price points that set them ahead, given all of the expenses they are likely to incur. The more fat people they have on their plans, the more likely they are to spend money on all the fat-related medical issues that arise, so the more they must charge.
While it may be unfair to target fat people (or smokers or drinkers or what-have-you), isn't it equally unfair to make healthy people pay a lot of extra money to support the unhealthy lifestyles of their neighbors?
As usual, this door swings both ways, and it doesn't matter whether the health care is universal or privatized...any kind of medical insurance raises these issues.
Are you sure you read the same 1984 I read? Cause pretty much nothing in there is real even now, aside from the paranoia you and others who think it is happening seem to exhibit.
Point of note, since this article is all hidden-metric...
The real waist requirements for men: 85 cm (33.4645669 inches)
The real waist requirements for women: 90 cm (35.4330709 inches)
Japan doesn't use inches.
Surely that counts out virtually most athletes in sports such as Weightlifting, Rugby Union, Shotput, Discus and many many more sports in which the atheletes are likely to be semi pro and have to have a 9 - 5 to help support themselves financially. Let alone Sumo Wrestling which is what football is to us Brits! Thats real football by the way to all you yanks :-p. You can be very healthy and very muscular and have a waist well above 33.5, I know a guy whose a semi professional Rugby Union player who has a 42 inch waist and a 55 inch chest, and is fitter than 99% of people on the street! It should be done on proper BMI (Body Mass Index), not including just height and weight as most do, but a real BMI includes skin fold measurements and takes into account percentage body fat and needs to be carried out by a qualified professional for the results to be accurate. If your gonna introduce a law which has monetary fines attatched to it at least make it fair!
Americans are taller than the Japanese, and thus even relatively thinner people can have a larger waistline, and be considered fat. A better measurement, or goal might be percentage body fat or BMI (Cue the BMI holy wars of body builders).
Yes, obese people (and smokers) take more sick time, have more health expenses, lower productivity, etc. I'm a physician, and public health is one of the courses we take, so obesity and smoking related problems a are HUGE percentage of health dollars spent.
Now as far as BMI - it does not measure fat - let me repeat that- it DOES NOT measure fat, merely the relative weight to height. People in the ideal range tend to live longer. People outside the ideal range, be it fat or huge amounts of muscle, tend not to live as long (strain on the heart, kidneys, joints, etc).
I think it's only a matter of time before health insurance companies, and the government figure out that these obese people are not profitable/cost too much, and will penalize them accordingly.
In terms of public health, I think this is a good thing, as it will save a significant amount of money, and produce better health. I am also a big fan of free will, and independence, so if someone wants to be really fat, or smoke, then they should be able to - at a price.
..........FULL STOP.
"We don't know how much it would, but studies from cigarette taxes show that increases costs decrease consumption of even highly desirable things."
So fewer and fewer people are getting what they desire, because other anonymous people don't desire it and would like to force them into a position where they can't afford their desires! What an idiotic and indefensible notion.
"Obesity increases fuel consumption -- the obese eat more (more food transport and production fuel use) and weigh more (more transport costs in themselves)."
If they can afford the food, who's to tell them they should be allowed to eat it. What happened to "life, liberty, pursuit of happiness"?
"And yes, their health care costs us -- we should be getting some of that back."
Only if you choose to be part of the system. The difference between that and a publicly-funded system is that you have no choice.
"A small tax..."
It is not the size that matters. Forcibly taking away someone's productivity (in the form of money) is no different from theft.
While it may be unfair to target fat people (or smokers or drinkers or what-have-you), isn't it equally unfair to make healthy people pay a lot of extra money to support the unhealthy lifestyles of their neighbors?
So, what if I have good genes.... and you have bad? If we are willing to open up the can of worms of risk assignment, then why should we ignore science and not surcharge those people who have doomed genetics? What, exactly, entitles people with weaker genes to a health discount at the expense of someone else?
This is my sig.
Shaquille O'Neil is not exactly fat at 7'1" and 325, but he has a BMI of 31.6 -- well into the "obese" range. A 5'2" woman would have to weigh 173 pounds to have the same BMI as Shaq -- and I know damn well that 173 and 5'2 is rolling fat.
So tell us how useful the BMI is as a gauge of obesity again.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Considering thinking of all taxes as a bad idea, but classifying some of them as necessary.
Thanks.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
And who gets to decide what is junk food?
"Increasing the cost of obesity reduces obesity. "
Either that or the government invades another country that has more food. :p
Just some back of the napkin figures to ponder...
I know its Wikipedia but the difference is not that great. About 172.8 cm average adult male for and 175.8 average adult male for US. This wikipedia article seems to be pretty well annotated.
Japan's diet is much improved since the post WWII days where the stereotype of Japanese being short was spread through US culture. They were shorter due to worse diet.
I have visited castles in Ireland, where my parents were born. Armor there looks like it was made for children, but Europeans in the middle ages were shorter, thanks to poor diet and disease.
A 3 cm diff in avg. Height comes to a little more than an inch. The average waste difference is 5.5 inches in TFA.
Now Humans tend to be taller than they are wide, so you would expect the variation in height to be larger than the variation in width. But the 33.5" to 39" difference is a circumference, not a width. a measurement around the waste should be directly compared to a measurement 'around the height" of the body. Measure foot to head, across the top of the head, back down from head to toe, and then across the bottom of the foot.
We can fudge this by doubling the difference in height and adding a little for the width of the body(a). Or by dividing the waste measurement by a little more than 2(b).
So (a)5.5" / 2.2 = 2.5" adjusted waste difference compare to a 1.2" height difference.
(b)1.2" x 2.2 = 2.64" adjusted height difference compare to waste difference of 5.5".
This brings the numbers a little closer, but still the waste differential is greater than the height using either fudge method.
Based on this data, it looks like Americans are carrying a little more around the middle than there Japanese counterparts.
go to hell
seriously
I eat a double bacon cheeseburger every single day
I'm 5'7, weigh 127lbs, have low blood pressure, and good cholesterol levels. I need to eat like this just to MAINTAIN my weight.
the last thing I need is to have it made even harder
Many insurance companies give people physicals and tend to cherry pick the best and most healthy individuals. With a universal system this would be reduced a great bit so we would probably see less regulations on peoples life style. I support universal health care but not these kinds of regulations. Education is a part of the solution, helping people understand how to eat a health diet. Ironically, it is americans workaholic busy lifestyle that leaves little time for exercise. If we gave people better pay, shorter work days and more vacation time, that would lead to a healthier population. The better pay would also mean better food. Many people eat a largely carbohydrate diet because that is the cheapest but that can lead to obesity. I think there is a lot of opposition to higher pay shorter work weeks and universal health care since it deconsolidates wealth and increases the overall well being of the general population but gets in the way of a few rich elites hoarding vast wealth.
You choose to have an unhealthy lifestyle, and thus there are incentives to encourage you to change.
Last I checked, I have very little control over my genetic code (still trying to invent that time machine so I can kill my father before I was born...)
That said, I'm rather unhappy that as a moderate consumer of alcohol, my insurance could group me with binge drinkers and charge me more money, even though there's evidence that moderate drinkers are healthier than non-drinkers. Who gets to decide what's science and what's not?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
When I was in the Air Force in the early seventies, I worked with a weight lifter. This guy made Arnold Schwarzenegger look small; I doubt he had a single pound of body fat; all muscle and bone.
The AF instituted a "fat boy" program, you weren't allowed to be over a certain weight for a given height. Unfortunately for the weight lifter, muscle is denser than fat and he weighed too much!
The poor fellow was a career man and almost got thrown out of the military for being too fit. He finally passed his weight test by drinking coffee and beer all night, pissing out much of his water weight. Not healthy of course, but he got to stay in the AF.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Do you know what it is called when you (the majority) pass taxes that only apply to a minority?
Slavery.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
You cannot control your genes.
You CAN control your obesity, alcoholism, and smoking.
If we are going to take this route, let's at least do it right.
The point is to penalize unhealthy people, correct? There are studies which show pretty conclusively that the healthiest people are the ones which are slightly over the 'ideal' weight. Folks carrying a bit of extra weight (read: normal) live longer than folks who maintain that beautiful body that TV insists you should have.
So, let's penalize the thin people too. If their lifestyle is as unhealthy as the fat folks, why exempt them?
When I was working on the vascular surgery ward, the beds were crammed with two kinds of people ; smokers, and type-2 diabetics. Many of them were both kinds. Most type-2 diabetes is self-inflicted and can be avoided through managing your weight and diet properly. Combining smoking with type-2 diabetes is basically asking to have your legs amputated.
When I was working on the pulmonary ward, the beds were crammed with 2 kinds of people - smokers, and asthmatics.
When I was working the infectious diseases ward, the patients were predominately junkies, with conditions brought on as a result of their habit.
When I was on ENT, the patients were of three types ; young children needing routine surgery like tonsillectomies and ear grommets, persistent nosebleeds, and really nasty mouth and throat cancers. The cancer patients were, you guessed it, all smokers.
So the vast majority of patients with chronic, manageable, expensive conditions, some requiring multiple surgeries just to get back a fraction of the function they should have had, were smokers, and fatties, and the worst of them were fat smokers.
Smoking and obesity cost the health service huge sweaty wads of money and I find your assertion to the contrary to be baseless.
...when you're big in Japan.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Please don't be confused, I am not a Libertarian. I cannot support a party that nominates for president the person who introduced the Defense of Marriage Act, or has a long history in support of the drug war. Libertarians are made up of a mix of random people with widely-varying principles who happen to agree on a couple things. They have some of the same goals, but their ultimate goals are so different that it makes the whole lot of them a big contradiction.
"The article notes the Japanese law mandating obesity checks, and then goes off to claim that this is somehow related to universal health care."
No, the summary proposes the situation where the US is under universal healthcare (as Japan is), and then asks if we could see similar legislation. It does not assert that such would be the case. "But, instead of discussing this, you want to claim that government run "anything" is bad."
I did so in order to show why government-mandated waistlines are fundamentally bad. It was not a change in subject.
"it is easy to google and find out how badly that worked"
Can you provide some evidence yourself, or should we assume that it worked out badly?
"And you claim that you don't want police or a judicial system."
Where do I claim that? I am not an anarchist. The purpose of the government is to uphold the rights of the citizenry. This is done through the courts, police, and military. Ideally, their funding would be voluntary but their service would be universal.
Between the political left who wants to limit our freedom for the common good and the political right who wants to limit our freedom for the common defense, all I can say is we're screwed.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
And that source is dubious at best.
They all cite the same article, and three of them are blogs opining about the implications of said article. NOt what I'd call quality sources (but I'm not trying to force my opinion down people's throats, so my standards for sources are higher).
That's complete crap. I see it every day, and the results were (when following the USDA's food recommendations) lack of energy, more susceptibility to illness and infections, and increased vertigo, balance problems, and other neurological symptoms.
That's what happened when my SO and I tried to eat according to the USDA's food pyramid AND limit our intake to about 1600 calories per day (per the doctor's recommendation).
Right now, my partner and I are attempting to change our diet to one that's more in line with the Zone recommendations (mostly because a true high-protein diet is WAY too expensive), but (as has been mentioned by numerous other posters) the cost of fresh vegetables and fruits is so high that eating the USDA's high-starch diet is much more affordable.
Regardless, your claim that fat people do not eat 1800 calories per day is pure concentrated bullcrap.
Gun control: The belief that a woman, raped and strangled with her panties, is morally superior to a dead rapist.
Try curing CAH. The symptoms right now, if you eat the required diet to keep the adrenal glands going, is to eat lots of high-cholesterol, high-electrolyte foods, which leads to weight gain. However, leaving the adrenals unchecked leads to other problems (heart problems) and throws off one's hormones, leading to weight gain. Today's western medicine treatments are to remove the adrenal glands (which, yes, you guessed it - lead to weight gain, and heart problems), or to take cortisol, which, yep! Taking that steroid leads to weight gain.
Me? I just started atkins. it's high enough in cholesterol that it should keep my adrenals happy, high enough in potassium and calcium (thanks to cheese!) and sodium to keep my electrolytes up, and the carbs down. Hopefully I'll be able to shed 50lbs.
But yes, there are glandular and hormonal issues which cannot be treated, or where the treatment causes more problems than the original symptoms.
But then, you probably know everything. ;)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
If fat people could control their weight merely by exerting a reasonably amount of conscious control over their diets (i.e., will power), they would. Being fat is a miserable fucking experience, and no one would put up with it if they didn't have to.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
"If fat people could control their weight merely by exerting a reasonably amount of conscious control over their diets (i.e., will power), they would"
Yet they can do exactly that and choose not to. Why are you saying "they would" when it's obvious to everyone that they don't?
"Being fat is a miserable fucking experience, and no one would put up with it if they didn't have to."
And yet THEY DO PUT UP WITH IT, despite your vacuous assertion otherwise. Why are you claiming "no one would put up with it" when it's obvious to everyone that they do, in total opposition to your point.
You seem to be claiming fat people can't control their weight through dietary choices and exercise and that were someone fat, they wouldn't choose to remain that way if they didn't have to.
To quote YOU "do you realize how incredibly fucking stupid that steaming pile you splattered on my screen sounds"?
If you don't take care of your body, and you become an expensive data point in your insurance system, you raise the premiums for everyone else. We all seem to generally agree on that. We disagree on what, if anything, should be done to make the system more "fair."
Likewise, if you don't raise your kid right and he becomes a murdering thug, you lower the quality of life for everyone else. Should your performance as a parent be judged, fined, taxed, regulated too? The societal impact of poor parenting is at least as great as that of too many cheeseburgers.
Personally, I will grudgingly pay for Mr. Unhealthy's insurance, and I will sadly let the person next door loose a brood of poorly socialized amoral goons on the world, because I think the alternative--trying to fix things--will end up being worse.
As for your own case, good for you! I've been working on it for 30 years and still don't have it licked...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
The biggest crime that fat people commit is the stealing of time from us normal folks.
As you may or may not know, gravity slows down time. Gravity is the product of mass. Their larger than average masses steals a larger than average portion of time from you as you pass through their (considerable) area of influence.
I'm walking and gravity is constant; normal; time is passing. Then I attempt to squeeze around this fat person because they're too slow. To the fat person, they're walking at a normal speed, but their time operates slowers than ours so relative to us and the natural, they're in fact walking slower.
So as I pass them, the grip of their massive gravity slows down the space-time I have to walk through to pass them. Even though it seems like it only took me 1 second to walk past them, 1.x seconds elapsed in the real world outside the gravity of the fat person.
In affect, the fat person STOLE X amount of time from me!!!
You can't get that back.
This phenomenon also accounts for fat people having lower IQs (just google it). There answers always take longer to formulate because their time is slowed down relative to ours. (assuming you're not fat)
The time-differential between obese and non-obese people is accountable for countless things.
You also might notice that the Japanese appear to be smarter than Americans. And potentially more efficient and harder workings. You'll also notice that per capita they're skinnier. Giving them more relative-time in a day to accomplish the same tasks.
It wouldn't surprise if the American day is actually 23.5 hours compared to the 24 hour day the rest of the world enjoys.