Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle: Re: [fast5] OT: Being FAT is now illegal in Japan

It's interesting that they are fining the *companies*, not the employees. Japan has this

sort of "group ethic" we don't have here. And employee that gets fat will shame the

entire company (and cost them money). So the company will server Japanese food

in the cafeteria, and encourage the employees not to eat at McDonald's. And do exercise

breaks during work hours, and encourage use of the stairs.

Although people here would have a fit if the government did this, the insurance

companies already do charge more for insurance in companies where the employees

are less healthy, although there the reasons are often just that the employees are older

(so companies would rather hire younger people). But companies DO contribute

to *bad* health, by having practices that encourage:

- Too many work hours

- Working through lunches

- Serving bad food in cafeterias

- Loads of snack machines featuring pop and crackers

When I was staying for a week in a hospital, to help care for a patient, I was amazed at

how hard it was to get decent healthy food *in a hospital*. Forget about the average

corporate cafeteria. In America we tend to blame or praise the individual, but for the

people working in that hospital, for instance, it would be quite difficult to eat well.

There is a lot of social pressure in the workplace. One doc I see for my kid, regularly

has pizza or donuts there for his staff, which he buys himself to help reward the staff.

I truly appreciate the motivation there, but pizza and donuts aren't going to help keep

the staff healthy.

But it's interesting that there is a tacit understanding that "Japanese food makes for

skinny people, American food makes for fat people". I don't think it's as easy as

the calorie count: if you eat Japanese food, you get full faster no matter how much

is served, and it's difficult to overeat it. Kind of like, it's difficult to overeat apples, even

when a whole bushel is sitting there to eat. Maybe some foods are just naturally

better at regulating the appestat.

BTW, at one company I helped run, we did serve lunch for employees. Mainly to

keep people from skipping lunch, since programmers are notorious for living off Twinkies

and soda pop. We had some discussion about what menu really should be used,

and that was difficult, since lunch turned out to be the "big meal" for most of us

(why bother cooking at home when you have a great lunch?). It did make me think

a lot about nutrition issues, because it occurred to me that we were now responsible

for other people's health. We ended up using a "body builder" type menu (employee

vote) and everyone lost weight.

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 6:20 PM, tamaratornado <tamaratornado@yahoo.com> wrote:

Being FAT is now illegal in Japan

33.5 inch waist for men, 35.5 inch waist for women, is legally overweight.

You tube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1hqHo6lyUU

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