# Being Fat is now illegal in Japan



## Windigo (Dec 2, 2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L1hqHo6lyUU
In Japan it's now illegal to have more than a 36 inch waist for men and a 35 inch waist for women. 

Yes, they're serious. What the hell? Are the rest of the western countries going to follow? I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry, this is beyond absurd.


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## Windigo (Dec 2, 2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L1hqHo6lyUU

In Japan it's now illegal to have more than a 36 inch waist for men and a 35 inch waist for women. 

Yes, they're serious. What the hell? Are the rest of the western countries going to follow? I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry, this is beyond absurd.


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## Windigo (Dec 2, 2011)

I'm sorry I didn't mean to post it twice, something went wrong.


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## Forgotten_Futures (Dec 2, 2011)

Appalling, yes, but not *too* surprising, given their space issues.

However, that does put quite a few Japanese on the wrong side of the law...

ETA: Also, this is quite old. So begs the question, is it still in effect?


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## CleverBomb (Dec 2, 2011)

Big's the reason when you're big in Japan.

-Rusty


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## Dr. Feelgood (Dec 2, 2011)

Mother of mercy! Is this the end of sumo?


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## Windigo (Dec 2, 2011)

Dr. Feelgood said:


> Mother of mercy! Is this the end of sumo?



I guess Sumo wrestlers have an exeptional position within the Japanese culture. 

I just hope this ridicoulus idea will never cross Japan's borders.


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## Windigo (Dec 2, 2011)

Forgotten_Futures said:


> Appalling, yes, but not *too* surprising, given their space issues.
> 
> However, that does put quite a few Japanese on the wrong side of the law...
> 
> ETA: Also, this is quite old. So begs the question, is it still in effect?



I guess it is, as I've only encountered this news today on another forum.


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## joswitch (Dec 2, 2011)

Windigo said:


> I guess it is, as I've only encountered this news today on another forum.



Hah. In the video the nurse isn't even measuring properly! She catches the tape around his belt!

I don't know what impact this had in Japan, but there are plenty of laws out there that just get ignored, from what I've read. The police are mainly interested in things looking calm and OK, not tooo bothered about the letter of the law. Hell, the yakuza have been an accepted and respected part of life in Japan for centuries!


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## Zoom (Dec 2, 2011)

And does that country have a NAAFJ? Or, for that matter, a human rights violations watchdog organization of any kind?


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## Mindee (Dec 2, 2011)

Windigo said:


> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L1hqHo6lyUU
> 
> 
> 
> Are the rest of the western countries going to follow?


Since when is Japan a "western country"?

XO
Mindee


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## Windigo (Dec 3, 2011)

Mindee said:


> Since when is Japan a "western country"?
> 
> XO
> Mindee



As far as technology and civilisation are measured it is, at least according to what I've been told at school.


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## tigerlily (Dec 3, 2011)

Dr. Feelgood said:


> Mother of mercy! Is this the end of sumo?



This was the first thing that went through my mind also. Even if they do regard it very highly, there's going to be some grey areas with this. Exceptions that they'll have to deal with that will make this unjust rule even more unjust.

I will be so sad if sumo wrestlers get harassed for this law.  I love sumo wrestling so much. It's one of the few things I think I could watch all day and not really grow tired of.


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## Mindee (Dec 3, 2011)

Windigo said:


> As far as technology and civilisation are measured it is, at least according to what I've been told at school.


Apparently the mere fact that Japan is in the far east and it's people subscribe to eastern philosophies must not count? Just becase they are an ADVANCED civilization does not make them a WESTERN nation.


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## AuntHen (Dec 3, 2011)

Everything is compact in Japan... the average person is not very big nor tall. It's an amazing place with amazing people and they are very "space conscious" (if you ever ride the bus or train during rush hour you will be crammed in like a sardine).


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## spacce (Dec 3, 2011)

I always wanted to wear the above t-shirt 
I friend a friend teaching english in japan, he's bigger then me
isn't it the steotype that japanese women love big american men?


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## BBWbonnie (Dec 4, 2011)

Wow this is amazing....seems like there is little freedom

OMG haha and I really wanted to go to Japan! Maybe I won't now!


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## CastingPearls (Dec 4, 2011)

I'm still gonna go. I'll just tell 'em I'm the new Godzilla and they'll worship me. 

Hell, they'll worship me anyway. Everyone does.


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## imfree (Dec 4, 2011)

CastingPearls said:


> I'm still gonna go. I'll just tell 'em I'm the new Godzilla and they'll worship me.
> 
> Hell, they'll worship me anyway. Everyone does.



They won't let you in Japan if you tell them you're the new Godzilla. They stopped quit admitting anyone with a name ending in "zilla" after Tracy Jozilla wrecked Tokyo!

The more articles I see about governments and their chickenshit laws and policies regarding obesity, the more I wish there was a real refuge like Fatopia!


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## Chubby B (Dec 5, 2011)

Sheesh, that guy in the video is not even average size by American standards!


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## moore2me (Dec 6, 2011)

*WARNING - GRAPHIC BRUTAL CONTENT IN THE FOLLOWING POST*

*Tomorrow is the anniversary of their Pearl Harbor sneak invasion of our country when they killed 2400 of our service men and women on Dec. 7, 1941 in Hawaii.* This aggressive and hostile act of war forced us to declare war in the Pacific and in the following months, more solders on both sides were killed and maimed.

To end the war, we dropped a couple of A bombs on their cities. It was a brutal thing to do, but the war ended and lives on both sides were saved in the long run. 

The Japanese people worked very hard to build the country back and make reparations from *SOME OF *their acts of war. We saw Japan suffer other natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and broken nuclear plants and the rise and fall of their economy. For a while, I started to feel a little sorry for the nation . . . . until I started hearing about what they did before Pearl Harbor was attacked in the city of *Nanking, China*.

I've had it with the " Chrysanthemum Nation". *This silly business about waist size control is just another example of Japan acting like a aggressive, mean, bully. The country pushes people around without concern how it affects the victims or any thought if the actions are appropriate. Japan seems to think that it should be in charge of everything and has the right to run the world. Believe me, we are very, very lucky they do not run the world. You should look into what they did in Nanking, China in 1937. * These guys and the Nazis are soul mates  the only difference in the victim count was the Japanese lack of time and money for execution supplies.

There is a recent movie that depicts what happened in Nanking called *City of Life and Death*. In a nutshell of horror, the Japanese decided to invade China and Nanking was the next city on the Imperial Armys route. The Chinese Army fled (under General Chiang Kai-shek) and left the town at the mercy of the invaders. 

*The body count is unreliable but was between 20,000 and 80,000 civilians brutally murdered by often sadistic and unhuman means*. Women, children, boys were raped to death. Others were killed in trenches by being buried alive. Some were forced into buildings that were set on fire. Japanese solders held contests were held to see who could kill 100 people with their sword the fastest. 

After the carnage was over, the Japanese tried to deny that they committed these acts  except there were witnesses from the international community and *early photographs *and the dead bodies that had not completely rotted.

Another award winning book on this is *The Rape of Nanking*. (It is not a fun read, but important for social awareness.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor


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## Lamia (Dec 6, 2011)

Some friends of mine went to Japan it was their lifelong dream. They are big people both of them and black and they said people were taking pictures of them everywhere they went. My friend showed me her scrapbook and they had started taking pictures of people taking pictures of them. She said she didn't know what they were more amazed about their size of their skin color. lol
They went to a play and had to use the sumo seating. My cousin is about 400 lbs and a cook on a merchant marine ship and travels around the world. She said people will come up and take pictures of her all the time.
It's like most of the world is in it's infancy. :doh:


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## AuntHen (Dec 6, 2011)

moore2me said:


> *WARNING - GRAPHIC BRUTAL CONTENT IN THE FOLLOWING POST*
> 
> *Tomorrow is the anniversary of their Pearl Harbor sneak invasion of our country when they killed 2400 of our service men and women on Dec. 7, 1941 in Hawaii.* This aggressive and hostile act of war forced us to declare war in the Pacific and in the following months, more solders on both sides were killed and maimed.
> 
> ...



While their history might be "tainted" (like so many countries), I think if you actually visited and got to know the culture and the people you would see it in a different light. The only thing they really "conquer" anymore is technology. You shouldn't put the "sins" of the fathers on the children.


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## AuntHen (Dec 6, 2011)

Lamia said:


> Some friends of mine went to Japan it was their lifelong dream. They are big people both of them and black and they said people were taking pictures of them everywhere they went. My friend showed me her scrapbook and they had started taking pictures of people taking pictures of them. She said she didn't know what they were more amazed about their size of their skin color. lol
> They went to a play and had to use the sumo seating. My cousin is about 400 lbs and a cook on a merchant marine ship and travels around the world. She said people will come up and take pictures of her all the time.
> It's like most of the world is in it's infancy. :doh:




sorry for not multi-posting...

they have stringent immigration laws so a lot of Japanese do not have experience with foreigners... especially outside of bigger cities like Tokyo, etc.


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## rg770Ibanez (Dec 6, 2011)

I find it odd that the men have a higher waist limit than the women taking into account that women naturally have a higher percentage of body fat and wider hips.


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## LinathSuru (Dec 7, 2011)

rg770Ibanez said:


> I find it odd that the men have a higher waist limit than the women taking into account that women naturally have a higher percentage of body fat and wider hips.



I found that odd too.


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## Jello404 (Dec 8, 2011)

ehh theyre smaller people who are very fit so this isnt really going to be a HUGE problem for them because the majority are in shape..or at least bhy Western standards. This seems like a great option for them. This would never work in America,and thank god for that.


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## imfree (Dec 8, 2011)

I dunno...The Japanese people are small and it may not seem like much for such a law to be enacted over there, but that's a heinous precedent against human rights that could make it here eventually if we don't stand against it. IMHO (HYPERBOLIC FONT)I really don't want to be on death row for capital obesity.


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## moore2me (Dec 8, 2011)

Heres a new science for a few of you DIMMERS  its *ANTHROPOMETRY*. A follower of anthropometry takes physical measurements of a persons size, form, and/or functional capacities. For example, body weight, height, length of right arm, length of left leg, and size of right foot (just to name a few). The subjects may be women of a certain race and of a certain age group. Or, sometimes a selected mixed population is used  for example the freshmen entering LSU, class of 2011.

Anthropometry usage has snowballed in the 1900s thru today. An old photograph of head measuring is at the end of this post,) There are many good uses for this kind of data, there is commercial use by industry, *but unfortunately there is some misuse and even worse there has been some downright EVIL USE FOR ANTHROPOMETRIC DATA (including how it was collected).

*The good use has been composing standardized charts by our military of the sizes of solders so that safety equipment and needed protective devices fit the men and women on the ground and in the air. Another good use is to help make sure our cars will protect our bodies during a crash. One more example, this kind of data helps to make sure a size 12W shoe will fit that size foot.

*(Now my explanation once more gets graphic and contains violence.)
*
The bad side of anthropometry has been data collected by hate groups to prove that selected races of people are inferior (and sometimes exterminated) or severely persecuted. The Nazis were obsessed with measuring the heads and skulls of Jews to prove the Aryans were a master race. (Some of the measurements were taken by harvesting brains from live Jews, some were even children.) KKK groups have also attempted the same pseudoscience using black head measurements compared to white ones. 

There has often been inaccurate use of anthropometric data thru history. One of the best examples is using dimensions of a person head to determine his likelihood of being a criminal. *The legal authorities of the US actually made a list including 14 identified traits of a criminal included large jaws, forward projection of jaw, low sloping forehead; high cheekbones, flattened or upturned nose; handle-shaped ears; hawk-like noses or fleshy lips; hard shifty eyes; scanty beard or baldness; insensitivity to pain; long arms, and so on.

**M2Ms side note  Can you name someone who has a couple of the above characteristics and is not a criminal? Of course you can. (handle-shaped ears  Prince Charles) (fleshy lips and high cheekbones  Angelina Jolie) (large jaw, forward projection of jaw  Chuck Connors, or Charles Heston, or Burt Lancaster) (flattened nose  most boxers), . . . . . .

*The Japanese are now using waist measurements to indicate that a waist larger than the normal Japanese citizen is a health risk to their country in general. They are saying that they need to stop Japanese from having above normal waist size because this will ruin their public health system and ruin the fat persons (or the person with the large waists) life.

There is actually a table of anthropometric data for Japanese men and women. One of the sources is this company. You can request a copy here - the Digital Human Consortium Japan http://riodb.ibase.aist.go.jp/dhbodydb/
&#9632;&#12288;Japanese Body Dimension Data, 1997-98
http://riodb.ibase.aist.go.jp/dhbodydb/97-98/index.html.en


*The Japanese are basing their waist size rules on medical evidence that is too limited in my opinion. That is one of the siren songs of anthropometric data, it is too easy to obtain and too easy to misuse. Such mistakes have been made by others in the past by either misusing data or incorrectly applying studies to the data.*

So what is next? the big feet, Japanese shoe police?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

So LinathSuru & Ibanez, 

If the above info doesn't contain enough excrutiating details, here's one more. You guys are right about the difference in women's body fat and men's. *But the reason the Woman's Waist measurement is smaller is that is for the average woman*. The Average Woman (50th percentile) is smaller than the Average Man (50 percentile). This fact is true between male and female of any racial group. 

The average Woman also carries her body fat in places other than her waist. Compared to the normal male, the normal female's fat is in her breasts, her hips, and her buttocks. Thank or blame mother nature. 

View attachment Figdims1.jpg


View attachment measure head.jpg


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## Dr. Feelgood (Dec 8, 2011)

moore2me said:


> The bad side of anthropometry has been data collected by hate groups to prove that selected races of people are inferior (and sometimes exterminated) or severely persecuted.



My favorite anthropometry story (from Stephen J. Gould's excellent book on the subject, _The Mismeasure of Man_) involves the Smithsonian Institution. The death of Daniel Webster coincided with that of the Apache chieftain Mangas Colorado. Webster had a huge head, so the Smithsonian thought it would be clever to display the two leaders' brains, pickled in alcohol, to show the superiority (in size, at least) of the white man to the red. Accordingly, they arranged to have Mangas Colorado's head delivered to the museum. What they hadn't realized was that Mangas was a giant: he was seven feet tall and built in proportion. His brain made Webster's look like a peanut, and the proposed display was quietly canceled. :happy:


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## LinathSuru (Dec 8, 2011)

moore2me said:


> So LinathSuru & Ibanez,
> 
> If the above info doesn't contain enough excrutiating details, here's one more. You guys are right about the difference in women's body fat and men's. *But the reason the Woman's Waist measurement is smaller is that is for the average woman*. The Average Woman (50th percentile) is smaller than the Average Man (50 percentile). This fact is true between male and female of any racial group.
> 
> The average Woman also carries her body fat in places other than her waist. Compared to the normal male, the normal female's fat is in her breasts, her hips, and her buttocks. Thank or blame mother nature.



Fair enough, M2M, I didn't really pause to think about the distribution of women's weight until after I'd posted. Thank you, by the by, for your rather informative post. I enjoyed reading it.


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## moore2me (Dec 8, 2011)

LinathSuru said:


> Fair enough, M2M, I didn't really pause to think about the distribution of women's weight until after I'd posted. Thank you, by the by, for your rather informative post. I enjoyed reading it.



Thanks for the thumbs up Linath. I appreciate your input. It was your question along with Ibanez's that motivated me to try and explain such a unique and strange science. And thanks to Dr. Feelgood for adding the always present Okie twist. 

View attachment tornado3.GIF


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## MissAshley (Dec 12, 2011)

That is pretty extreme. I think Japan has always been proud of the fact that they are thinner than the US, but in recent years they have been getting bigger because their food as been more "American-ized." I'm not sure what they expected to happen, but these measures they are trying to take is a big mistake.

Edit: Whoops I mean to post this in the other thread. Feel free to delete this post.


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## MissAshley (Dec 12, 2011)

That is pretty extreme. I think Japan has always been proud of the fact that they are thinner than the US, but in recent years they have been getting bigger because their food as been more "American-ized." I'm not sure what they expected to happen, but these measures they are trying to take is a big mistake.


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## Cors (Dec 12, 2011)

This standard does not apply to non-ethnic Japanese. If you are Asian, you will get plenty of flak if you are even the slightest bit chubby but Westerners generally get a free pass and are even expected to be significantly bigger. It is worth noting that the average East Asian is tiny and our so-called healthy BMI cut-off is 23 instead of 25 for other ethnic groups because we are predisposed to having lighter bones, smaller frames, a higher percentage of body fat at the same weight. We tend to look heavier than we actually are and have the same "health risks" associated with a higher BMI. 

I am pretty average body-wise for an Asian woman and am on the tall side even. I'm 5'5", under 100lbs and my waist measures a little less than 23". I don't even look particularly thin, it is just the box-like way most Asian women are shaped - narrow shoulders, flat chest, tiny ribcage, small waist, longer torso, shorter legs. For the average small-boned 5' tall Japanese woman to have a 35" waist, she would most likely have to be 200lbs and above which is something you hardly ever see, even around the rest of Southeast Asia where people are generally bigger. Here, if you look at slimming ads and magazines, a "fat" girl is typically 130lbs and a 28" waist on a woman gives the average person on the street the creeps. Incidentally, Asia also boasts of an abnormally high eating disorder rate. 

Horrible law, it's been around for a while and is not rigidly enforced at all. Companies taking out health insurance for their employees are more likely to get on the "fat" person's case. You are also talking about a nation where people still tend to be ridiculously loyal to their employers and care a great deal about appearances - the Japanese being likely to work for the same company all their lives, toiling longer hours than required, doing whatever they can to make their bosses look good on paper - including taking on drastic measures on their own to change their size even if not for carrots and sticks.


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## ribbondancer (Dec 14, 2011)

Somehow, I'm not surprised by this at all because it's Japan. I can't see this being introduced anywhere else but how will this work in Japan anyway? What about the Sumo wrestlers? And rg770Ibanez, a woman's hip size is different to her waist size. Women generally have smaller waists than men =].


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## EMH1701 (Dec 20, 2011)

Windigo said:


> Yes, they're serious. What the hell? Are the rest of the western countries going to follow? I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry, this is beyond absurd.



I'm afraid it will happen.


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