Mark Wright’s Blog

I was checking out what was going on in the world today and I came across a news story that I thought was very interesting.  It appears that the Japanese government has decided that they have a weight problem in their country.  The government has decided to start fining employers whose workers are overweight.  For men, if their waistline is more than 33.5 inches, they are considered overweight.  For women it is 35.2 inches. 

As I watched the article, they of course came to the root cause of the problem.  While the traditional Japanese diet consists of fish, vegetables and soup, fast food has crept into the diet.  What I found really funny about this article is the idea of having a waistline of more than 33.5 inches is considered overweight.  None of the people in the article that they accused of being overweight would even remotely considered obese in the United States.  Now the story did point out that the reason for the size being the way it was is because Japanese men are smaller.  I am not going Don Imus on you, I’m just relaying the facts of the story.    

A waistline of 33.5 inches being overweight was pretty humorous to me.  If Blue Sand Design were complying with this, I would have to fine myself.   Considering that I haven’t had a waist of that size since I was probably 15 years old.  When my waist got to the dreaded 34 inch zone, I was probably in the best shape of my life.  I encountered a similar problem when I was in the Navy.  You had to be a certain weight in proportion to your height.  The proportions for me would have been unreasonable even if I had been on a two-month meth bender.  I was six feet tall at the time and I weighed about 205 lbs.  When I got out of basic training I weighed about 182 lbs. and I looked terrible.  To top it off, I still wasn’t considered healthy to the Navy.  They did later change their rules to take into account body fat. 

I understand to a degree what the Japanese government is trying to do.  People who are overweight run the risk of greater health problems and this drives up the cost of health care.  What I also noticed during the new story is that the companies that had subsidiaries in the United States did not have to comply with this edict.  I guess they figured it was too late to do it here.      

One of the things I have noticed during my quest to get in shape is that making changes on what I eat and how much make a huge difference.  While I still pretty much eat what I want, I have cut out most fast food and trimmed my portions down.  It has made a huge difference.  The few times I have eaten something deep fried or heavy, it has left me feeling lethargic.  But come on now, a 33.5 inch being too large.  That is pretty goofy.  I did notice when I went to the gym after work that I put just a little more into it than normal.