Can’t call an “anomaly” something which is actually the general case. Well, you can, but it’s incorrect.
I read a book recently (actually I read only parts of it), about the Chinese cuisine.
I will assume that the Japanese cuisine is similar.
They have a totally different philosophy about food than the West.
They have a set of ideas and what you might call rules, that apparently work.
Overall the emphasize on the quality of their food, and dedicate time.
The Muslim cultures also, in general, appreciate good food.
I have seen fat non-Sumo Japanese – here in Thailand, in Hawaii and in Japan itself.
Last year we went on a river cruise in (mostly) Germany. The vast majority of the passengers were Americans and, presumably, fairly well off, since those cruises are expensive.
I made an observation to my wife at the time, that our fellow cruisers were not as fat as the Americans we commonly see around the tourist spots in the UK. Many of us were probably obese by the medical standards, but there was no one on board that I would not have wanted next to me on a plane. There were a good proportion of slimmer people too, and some of the more elderly (the median age would have been in the 60s) were pretty fit. One couple in their 80s, complained that the walking tours were too slow.
The observation made me wonder if there is any correlation between wealth and BMI. It is commonly observed that, the wealthier a population is, the greater their BMI, but now I am wondering if, in a generally well-off population, the more wealthy are more likely to be slimmer than their poorer counterparts.
Agreed – I should have put “anomalies” in scare quotes.
I was just getting in that dig against the “carbs are evil” crowd because when discussing the healthy diets of the japanese and italians, pasta, pizza, rice, noodles etc are the elephant in the room that we must not speak of.
Here are two charts showing the average BMI of Japanese from 1947 to 2012. The chart on the left is for men, the one on the right are women. The ages shown are for 17-year-olds, then for those in their 20s, 30s and up to 60s.
As expected, post war, people were much thinner. During the war, they simply didn’t have sufficient food. The BMI for men has gone up fairly consistently, but the rate of increase has changed lately as the government has implemented a number of policies to curtail the trend.
Several reasons for the difference. Many more men eat outside the home much more frequently. Japanese home cooked meals are pretty healthy, most of the type of restaurants where businessmen eat and drink are not.
Japanese women in their 20s are actually thinner than 17-year-olds. There is tremendous pressure on young women to be thin. This chart shows the percentage of women who are too thin, with a BMI of less than 18.5. The numbers of the left who the percent who are too thin, by age group. It shows that 21% of women in their 20s are in this catagory.
A number of years back, the government started implementing policies to encourage overweight people to become thinner. Almost all Japanese need to have an annual health checkup through their work or the national health care system.
There have criteria that if you are over, they encourage you to lose weight and have you meet with a diet counselor. Among that is BMI and your waist measurement was was ridiculously small, 85 cm, and for me, at 183 cm tall, isn’t really that overweight.
Companies may face penalties if too many people are over the criteria. I’m not really familiar with that, though.
This chartshow the ratio of people who have a BMI of over 25, separated by income, with the lower income on the left and the higher income on the right. Blue is for males, and pink is for women.
This chartshows the percentage of people in the various countries who have a BMI of over 30, with Japan on the far left side at 3.5% and the US on the far right with 36%.
Like any other social problem, you can write books about the causes, but some that I noticed:
Portion sized are completely different, especially meat and desserts. Carbs as well.
Japanese “fast food” typically has much fewer calories than US fast food.
There are some fat Japanese, and not just sumo wrestlers. There aren’t a lot of them, but when I lived in Japan I did encounter fat Japanese people.
But as hibernicus noted, daily life in Japan makes it easier for many people to keep their weight down. I walked to work and most places I needed to go for everyday errands (grocery store, bank, post office) were within walking distance of my apartment. Most of the Japanese food I was eating was pretty low cal, and while I actually still ate a lot of Western style food, restaurant/fast food portion sizes were smaller than in the US. I regularly went to MOS Burger for lunch and got a sandwich/drink/fries combo, and the fries that came with that were more like what would be considered the kiddie size in the US. I just found English nutrition available for MOS Burger Singapore, and I see that their regular (small) fries are 129 calories and their large fries are 214 calories. Those are the only sizes they have. McDonald’s kids fries are 110 calories, small fries are 230 calories, medium is 340 calories, and large is 510 calories.
I lost about 40 lbs. when I was living in Japan without making any deliberate effort to do so, and I hadn’t been large to begin with – by the time I returned to the US I was slightly underweight. I gained it all back pretty quickly after returning to the US, though.
As has been noted, food is much more expensive in Japan. Americans spend less (pdf) of their income on food than anyone else in the world, less than 7%. The Japanese spend a bit more than twice that, and as noted in this thread, that buys them less of it. I’m not sure one needs to look much farther to understand why Japan eats less food.
“BMI” is not science and is based upon 150 yo data complied by a man with no medical background. It has been shown to have little measure of overall health.
Just so, SanVito, and I thank you …
In retrospect, maybe I should have titled the thread "Why are there no fat Japanese tourists ? "
That might have leveraged a whole different slant to the responses… but thank you all for the interesting comments and observations so far … very enlightening.
It should maybe form the basis of a different thread, but I was always intrigued by something I saw in a documentary many years ago, wherein it was stated that the build-up of body weight in Sumo wrestlers was achieved by eating massive quantities of vegetables, and not by eating huge amounts of meat.
Whether this is in fact so, I do not know, but that is what the makers of the documentary claimed. If it is true, then perhaps that would account for the ease with which the wrestlers shed the excess weight upon retirement.
When I first saw that documentary, there was no such thing as a search engine … I just did a Google search, and there are dozens of discussions about the Sumo diet …
I think there is some selection effect here, as you imply. I suspect Japanese people wealthy enough to vacation in the UK are, on average, more wealthy and less likely to be obese than the overall Japanese population.
The stereotypical food for sumo wrestlers is the chanko nabe. It’s fairly low in fat, but contains a lot of proteins as well as vegetables. And of course, it’s eaten with a lot of steamed rice on the side.
Also, sumo wrestling is still wrestling, and building muscle at least as important as gaining weight. So it really shouldn’t be seen as a weight gain diet.
A few observations from the time I spent living in Japan:
- Food portions are smaller than in Canada, and much smaller than in the US. You will be served smaller portions in restaurants, and single-serve foods from convenience stores tend to be smaller too.
- While there are unhealthy options available (like deep-fried tofu and mayonnaise on everything), side dishes are generally healthier than here. You’re more likely to get a dish of pickles or plain rice than, for example, french fries.
- I don’t know if men face the same issues, but there is huge social pressure on women to be thin. Many dress shops only stock one-size-fits-all. If they do have a Large, it’s the equivalent of an American size 6 or 8. Even the largest women on TV would be barely chubby by Western standards.
So, in light of the post above from xnylder , if I may ask, to the previous posters who have asserted that they have observed “fat Japanese” were these “fat Japanese” male or female ?
Cutting to the chase, has anybody ever seen a fat Japanese woman ?
I sure as hell haven’t …
Here you go. (probably NSFW).
I lived in a high dairy-producing area in Japan (Hokkaido) and I can assure you there are plenty of fat adults and kids there.
Definitely the walking/cycling is a big thing. One factor I think is unappreciated is the practice of serving numerous small dishes in the meal. I read somewhere that greater food variety leads to earlier fullness/satiety. Rarely in Japan will you be served a meal of less than 5 dishes (small servings, it goes without saying).
It has been shown to have little measure of overall health for an individual. For a population, it’s a useful measure. The average lifespan of Americans probably loses 2 years due to a high population-wide BMI.
In fact the exact opposite is true:
Do we really need to go around the BMI merry go round again?
Even for individuals it has good utility as a screening tool. BMIs over 30 and moreso over 35 have a good correlation with risk for the complications of obesity. It is less good in the 25 to 30 range and the optimal BMI ends up not correlating well with the range that is called “normal” (low normal correlates with higher risk and low overweight with low risk). It is not a perfect tool, few tools are. ABSI may turn out to be a better one but it is early days.
It has been a better tool for studying populations as you note.
That said it is limited even for populations. Again, the Japanese population has more body fat at the same BMI as Caucasion populations, and a greater risk for T2DM at the same BMI. Even with that correction obesity rates are low.
Such does not invalidate the tool, it merely means that the tool should be used with knowledge of its limitations.
Yo! I have.