Will the Japanese act so decisively on cigarettes?

The law – dubbed the ‘metabo law’ comes from the phrase metabolic syndrome. Over the years the buzzword ‘metabo’ has replaced obesity. It is now a part of the daily lexicon.

In fact the idea of a ‘fat law’ seems to be so simple you wonder why other governments don’t follow suit. But in practice the law may not be so easy to enforce.

Doctor Hiroyuki Hayashi who runs an ‘anti-metabo’ clinic. (Jenny Craig anyone?) told the AFP Blogs that the law was a failure.

Will the Japanese act so decisively on cigarettes?

“For me, it’s a failure because it’s not been effective,” he said, citing health ministry figures that show of the 52 million or so people aged between 40 and 74 who are meant to undergo annual exams, less than half do so, about 23 million. “Out of these people, a little more than four million are beyond the limits, so are given written recommendations. But only 12.3 percent of these people follow through on this medical advice.”

Despite these statistics, something is keeping the Japanese slim – whether it is the layout of their cities that encourages walking and movement, the complexities of their diet, or the government intervention.

It is an irony though that the country so concerned about metabolic syndrome, has the third largest number of per capita cigarette consumption outside Eastern Europe.

https://www.slideshare.net/markppt/japan-and-the-metabo-law