japan measuring bellies

Is there such a law where japan business and government people must get their bellies measured?? I read an article where the waistline measurements must be 33 1/2 inch for men & 35 1/2 inch for women.

Michelle,

I'm not sure of the exact details, but I believe that office/government workers are obliged to undergo a health check which measures their waists. I'm not sure what the figures are in inches, but the fact that the figures are larger for women (who have slimmer waists) shows how arbitrary the whole scheme is.

Furthermore, it seems to be limited to people aged 40-74 years.

Self-employed people like myself too received a notice from the city hall requiring us to take health check-up INCLUDING this belly measurement lol. It's supposed to be for their survey purpose, and also to promote consciousness for better health - they say if your belly measurement exceed those numbers you are/are on the verge of "metabolic syndrome," for which regular exercise and dietary control. In the end, it's the government's scheme to reduce future medical bill obligations :) I believe they revised the number for women recently (or was it WHO?).

Rather than a law it might be a survey and government workers are easier to survey than employees of private businesses. Once the government knows the % people who are fat, too fat, and "average" they might try to convince people to lose fat as excess fat does have a negative impact on health though excessive slimness is al o unhealthy.. HOWEVER asking someone waist size without also asking their height is rather silly. We have a similar problem in Canada where health officials, newspapers etc. are forever talking about the optimum body mass index that we should strive for. Unfortunately the BMI is obtained by measuring a person weight and height and playing with these numbers, without checking the body type of the person .According to BMI tables many competitive athletes are "obese"???. None of these experts seems to understand that 3 people could have the same BMI yet have totally different body shapes and degrees of health. Here doctors are concerned when a man's waist is over 40 inches but obviously it is a lot worse if the man is 5 ft tall than if he is 6 ft 10 " !

For sure there are no "laws" about it. But there may be "rules" depending on the organization you work for.

In other words, like any human being in the world, if you recieve any sort of serious waring at your annual health check-up, eventually you need to see a doctor. If you keep on working without seeing a doctor, you can get sick and your employer might loose manpower.

In the recent years, doctors have suggested that waste-measuring is one of the most easiest ways to judge whether a middle-aged to elderly person is suffering or about to suffer metabolic syndrome which can be a cause to dozens of serious deseases.

So I don't think it's that if your waste is fatter than a certain measurement you get fired, but it's that if you get a warning from a doctor, your employers are going to keep an eye on you.

Like the rest of the world, Japan is suffering an economic crisis at the moment and thousands of workers are being layed off, but I can't tell you how many fat people are still working with no threat of being fired.

You would expect them to measure the kids instead of the people in the 40-74 bracket as they would have already developed heart-disease by then if they were sensitive to that. In this age bracket it would make a lot more sense to have anti-smoking campaigns, IMO.

Anti-smoking campaigns have been going on for many years, pretty much to the limit to what that age range can take.

Of course, children's overweight have been a serious issue for some time as well, but this question was about "business and government people."

Thank you for all of your answers to my question. However, I was looking for more solid documentation regarding this "law". I'm writing a short paper on this subject and need solid documentation that it actually exists.