Japanese Gov. new rules to fight ballooning waistlines
soowhat...@hotmail.com
This governmental intrusion could happen in the US under 00bama/
Clinton’s type health care plan.
"The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in
a rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the
most serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today.
***Most Japanese are covered under public health care or through their
work***. Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more
for health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday
against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime
minister in the country’s postwar history."
Arbor
June 13, 2008
Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
AMAGASAKI, Japan — Japan, a country not known for its overweight
people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a
nation to slim down its citizenry.
Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri,
45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline
measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of
being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan
these days.
But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a
strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple
of days earlier. “I’m on the border,” he said.
Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies
and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese
people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups.
That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent
of the entire population.
Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4
inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in
2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy
guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related
ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do
not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward
further re-education after six more months.
To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10
percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven
years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and
local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s
Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of
diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.
The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in a
rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the most
serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today. Most
Japanese are covered under public health care or through their work.
Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more for
health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday against
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime minister in the
country’s postwar history.
But critics say that the government guidelines — especially the one
about male waistlines — are simply too strict and that more than half
of all men will be considered overweight. The effect, they say, will
be to encourage overmedication and ultimately raise health care costs.
Yoichi Ogushi, a professor at Tokai University’s School of Medicine
near Tokyo and an expert on public health, said that there was “no
need at all” for the Japanese to lose weight.
“I don’t think the campaign will have any positive effect. Now if you
did this in the United States, there would be benefits, since there
are many Americans who weigh more than 100 kilograms,” or about 220
pounds, Mr. Ogushi said. “But the Japanese are so slender that they
can’t afford to lose weight.”
Mr. Ogushi was actually a little harder on Americans than they
deserved. A survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found
that the average waist size for Caucasian American men was 39 inches,
a full inch lower than the 40-inch threshold established by the
International Diabetes Federation. American women did not fare as
well, with an average waist size of 36.5 inches, about two inches
above their threshold of 34.6 inches. The differences in thresholds
reflected variations in height and body type from Japanese men and
women.
Comparable figures for the Japanese are sketchy since waistlines have
not been measured officially in the past. But private research on
thousands of Japanese indicates that the average male waistline falls
just below the new government limit.
That fact, widely reported in the media, has heightened the anxiety in
the nation’s health clinics.
In Amagasaki, a city in western Japan, officials have moved
aggressively to measure waistlines in what the government calls
special checkups. The city had to measure at least 65 percent of the
40- to 74-year-olds covered by public health insurance, an “extremely
difficult” goal, acknowledged Midori Noguchi, a city official.
When his turn came, Mr. Nogiri, the flower shop owner, entered a booth
where he bared his midriff, exposing a flat stomach with barely
discernible love handles. A nurse wrapped a tape measure around his
waist across his belly button: 33.6 inches, or 0.1 inch over the
limit.
“Strikeout,” he said, defeat spreading across his face.
The campaign started a couple of years ago when the Health Ministry
began beating the drums for a medical condition that few Japanese had
ever heard of — metabolic syndrome — a collection of factors that
heighten the risk of developing vascular disease and diabetes. Those
include abdominal obesity, high blood pressure and high levels of
blood glucose and cholesterol. In no time, the scary-sounding
condition was popularly shortened to the funny-sounding metabo, and it
has become the nation’s shorthand for overweight.
The mayor of one town in Mie, a prefecture near here, became so
wrapped up in the anti-metabo campaign that he and six other town
officials formed a weight-loss group called “The Seven Metabo
Samurai.” That campaign ended abruptly after a 47-year-old member with
a 39-inch waistline died of a heart attack while jogging.
Still, at a city gym in Amagasaki recently, dozens of residents — few
of whom appeared overweight — danced to the city’s anti-metabo song,
which warned against trouser buttons popping and flying away, “pyun-
pyun-pyun!”
“Goodbye, metabolic. Let’s get our checkups together. Go! Go! Go!
Goodbye, metabolic. Don’t wait till you get sick. No! No! No!”
The word metabo has made it easier for health care providers to urge
their patients to lose weight, said Dr. Yoshikuni Sakamoto, a
physician in the employee health insurance union at Matsushita, which
makes Panasonic products.
“Before we had to broach the issue with the word obesity, which
definitely has a negative image,” Dr. Sakamoto said. “But metabo
sounds much more inclusive.”
Even before Tokyo’s directives, Matsushita had focused on its
employees’ weight during annual checkups. Last summer, Akio Inoue, 30,
an engineer carrying 238 pounds on a 5-foot-7 frame, was told by a
company doctor to lose weight or take medication for his high blood
pressure. After dieting, he was down to 182 pounds, but his waistline
was still more than one inch over the state-approved limit.
With the new law, Matsushita has to measure the waistlines of not only
its employees but also of their families and retirees. As part of its
intensifying efforts, the company has started giving its employees
“metabo check” towels that double as tape measures.
“Nobody will want to be singled out as metabo,” Kimiko Shigeno, a
company nurse, said of the campaign. “It’ll have the same effect as
non-smoking campaigns where smokers are now looked at disapprovingly.”
Companies like Matsushita must measure the waistlines of at least 80
percent of their employees. Furthermore, they must get 10 percent of
those deemed metabolic to lose weight by 2012, and 25 percent of them
to lose weight by 2015.
NEC, Japan’s largest maker of personal computers, said that if it
failed to meet its targets, it could incur as much as $19 million in
penalties. The company has decided to nip metabo in the bud by
starting to measure the waistlines of all its employees over 30 years
old and by sponsoring metabo education days for the employees’
families.
Some experts say the government’s guidelines on everything from
waistlines to blood pressure are so strict that meeting, or exceeding,
those targets will be impossible. They say that the government’s real
goal is to shift health care costs onto the private sector.
Dr. Minoru Yamakado, an official at the Japan Society of Ningen Dock,
an association of doctors who administer physical exams, said he
endorsed the government’s campaign and its focus on preventive
medicine.
But he said that the government’s real priority should be to reduce
smoking rates, which remain among the highest among advanced nations,
in large part because of Japan’s powerful tobacco lobby.
“Smoking is even one of the causes of metabolic syndrome,” he said.
“So if you’re worried about metabo, stopping people from smoking
should be your top priority.”
Despite misgivings, though, Japan is pushing ahead.
Kizashi Ohama, an official in Matsuyama, a city that has also acted
aggressively against metabo, said he would leave the debate over the
campaign’s merits to experts and health officials in Tokyo.
At Matsuyama’s public health clinic, Kinichiro Ichikawa, 62, said the
government-approved 33.5-inch male waistline was “severe.” He is 5-
foot-4, weighs only 134 pounds and knows no one who is overweight.
“Japan shouldn’t be making such a fuss about this,” he said before
going off to have his waistline measured.
But on a shopping strip here, Kenzo Nagata, 73, a toy store owner,
said he had ignored a letter summoning him to a so-called special
checkup. His waistline was no one’s business but his own, he said,
though he volunteered that, at 32.7 inches, it fell safely below the
limit. He planned to disregard the second notice that the city was
scheduled to mail to the recalcitrant.
“I’m not going,” he said. “I don’t think that concerns me.”
Taka
> Sooo what's coming next - starvation camps?
You are mistaken, next is compulsory feeding with synthetic drugs like
statins and supplements like fish oil. I have already received
guidlines what to eat after having a high total cholesterol level
tested. It includes Omega-3 fats, vegetable oils, margarines, fatty
fish, soy and leafy vegetables & nuts and I was ordered to avoid any
saturated fat including butter (which disappeared from the store
shelves anyway), cream and fatty meat cuts as well as eggs and limit
dairy before even this "metabo" law came out. They are not going to
limit the refined carbohydrates and PUFAs as well as smoking which
bring fortune to the drug companies in the long term. Instead they
kill your liver with highly unsaturated oils and antinutrients so that
it is no longer capable of producing cholesterol as a response to
stress. Then they are going to keep you alive with synthetic drugs
substituting for hormones which your body is no longer able to produce
while keeping you brainwashed with TV commercials so you wouldn't use
your own brain to consume what the body truly needs. Seems like the
government ran out of reasons to keep increasing the compulsory health
insurance payments so they are switching to different tactics...
Taka
> This governmental intrusion could happen in the US under 00bama/
> Clinton’s type health care plan.
>
> "The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in
> a rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the
> most serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today.
> ***Most Japanese are covered under public health care or through their
> work***. Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more
> for health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday
> against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime
> minister in the country’s postwar history."
>
> Arbor
>
> www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/world/asia/13fat.html?_r=1&ei=5087&em=&en=...
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
> soowhatdouth...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > http://groups.google.com/group/sci.life-extension/msg/f24bf21ff5aaac56?
>
> > Sooo what's coming next - starvation camps?
>
> You are mistaken, next is compulsory feeding with synthetic drugs like
> statins and supplements like fish oil. I have already received
> guidlines what to eat after having a high total cholesterol level
> tested. It includes Omega-3 fats, vegetable oils, margarines, fatty
> fish, soy and leafy vegetables & nuts and I was ordered to avoid any
> saturated fat including butter (which disappeared from the store
> shelves anyway), cream and fatty meat cuts as well as eggs and limit
> dairy before even this "metabo" law came out. They are not going to
> limit the refined carbohydrates and PUFAs as well as smoking which
> bring fortune to the drug companies in the long term. Instead they
> kill your liver with highly unsaturated oils and antinutrients so that
> it is no longer capable of producing cholesterol as a response to
> stress. Then they are going to keep you alive with synthetic drugs
> substituting for hormones which your body is no longer able to produce
> while keeping you brainwashed with TV commercials so you wouldn't use
> your own brain to consume what the body truly needs. Seems like the
> government ran out of reasons to keep increasing the compulsory health
> insurance payments so they are switching to different tactics...
>
> Taka
It remains smarter to simply eat less, down to the right amount...
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/msg/3558812d72ab4e17?
... instead of starving (ie not eating).
May you and other dear neighbors, friends, and brethren have a
blessedly wonderful 2008th year since the birth of our LORD Jesus
Christ as our Messiah, the Son of Man ...
... by being hungrier:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/msg/f891e617d10bd689?
Hunger is wonderful ! ! !
It's how we know what GOD desires, which is all that is good.
Yes, hunger is our knowledge of good versus evil that Adam and Eve
paid for with their and our immortal lives.
"Blessed are you who hunger NOW...
... for you will be satisfied." -- LORD Jesus Christ (Luke 6:21)
Amen.
Here is a Spirit-guided exegesis of Luke 6:21 given in hopes of
promoting much greater understanding:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/msg/cc2aa8f8a4d41360?
Be hungry... be healthy... be hungrier... be euglycemic...
Marana tha
Prayerfully in the awesome name of our Messiah, LORD Jesus Christ,
Andrew <><
--
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/msg/117245343707310e?
Citizen Jimserac
wrote:
Hey stay away from the nitric oxide gas, ok?
Citizen Jimserac
D. C. Sessions
> Hey stay away from the nitric oxide gas, ok?
You do realize that NO is an important hormone, don't you?
Among other things, it's essential to erectile function.
--
| "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against |
| unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct |
| before reason can act on them" -- Thomas Jefferson |
+-------- D. C. Sessions <d...@lumbercartel.com> ---------+
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
> Citizen Jimserac wrote:
> > Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
> >
> > > http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/msg/2419e330e79f123c?
>
> > Hey stay away from the nitric oxide gas, ok?
>
> You do realize that NO is an important hormone, don't you?
> Among other things, it's essential to erectile function.
This simply illustrates how mistaken folks are when guided by the
spirit of error (self).
May you and other dear neighbors, friends, and brethren have a
blessedly wonderful 2008th year since the birth of our LORD Jesus
Christ as our Messiah, the Son of Man ...
... by being hungrier:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/msg/f891e617d10bd689?
Hunger is wonderful ! ! !
It's how we know what GOD desires, which is all that is good.
Yes, hunger is our knowledge of good versus evil that Adam and Eve
paid for with their and our immortal lives.
"Blessed are you who hunger NOW...
... for you will be satisfied." -- LORD Jesus Christ (Luke 6:21)
Amen.
Here is a Spirit-guided exegesis of Luke 6:21 given in hopes of
promoting much greater understanding:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/msg/cc2aa8f8a4d41360?
Be hungry... be healthy... be hungrier... be euglycemic...
Marana tha
Prayerfully in the awesome name of our Messiah, LORD Jesus Christ,
Andrew <><
--
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.cardiology/msg/3558812d72ab4e17?