White Boy/White Dog Move To Skid Row

Certified Beach Dude Moves To Downtown Los Angeles

It sounds like the Japanese government is getting serious about reducing the overall percentage of overweight people, at least in it’s workforce.  Supposedly already under way, everyone over age 40 needs to be tested for “metabolic syndrome, an obesity-linked condition that increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes” (I’ve never heard of metabolic syndrom, and why limit test to just over 40?). This is supposed to reduce spiraling health-care costs.

Bloomberg Article March 12, 2008

One of the key factors they consider is whether men have a waistline larger than 33.5″ (they do take body mass, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and smoking into consideration).

“Companies will be required to cut the number of overweight workers and dependents by 10 percent as of 2012 and 25 percent by 2015.”

As much as I think people should try to live healthy, and morbidly obese people, especially children, get me a little upset at the lack of self- or parental-control, I don’t like this approach.

In the U.S., we kind of have a similar program, in that most insurance companies, and some other industries and the military, use a formula to calculate the “Body Mass Index” to tell if you are insurable or employable.  The flaw with this is the BMI only takes into account height and weight to calculate the BMI.  At 5′ 11″, 200 lbs (with a 32″ waist) I am at the high end of obese…  this rating seems pretty outdated and needs to be updated to take into account other factors such as bone structure (wrist size is good indicator), and perhaps age and gender.  I’m all for reducing health care costs and trying to encourage people to not get to the point they need to buy 2 plane seats when they fly, but this borders on discrimination, which I am always against.