^ I think the squealing thing has to do with Japanese women having a smaller...er, entrance to accommodate the menfolk. So when they get something that's bigger than your average pinky, it's like to them.
Oerdin was right in saying their compliant "groupthink" will virtually ensure nobody will bitch. Their government won't have to coerce the people. Once a few people start lining up to be measured, they will up jump on the Super Happy Prefecture Waist Measuring Funtime and Hari-Kari Extravaganza Holiday Special like there's tomorrow. In America we have a saying - "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." In Japan they say "The protruding nail gets hammered."
Because there's never been any such thing in "The Best Damn Country in the World"[tm]. The reason only *some* of you are inert fatasses is because your school districts weren't allowed to cut gym programs due to a federal mandate. The reason why some of you won't have to worry about "death panels" is because your arteries will clog well before you reach retirement age. You want fries with that?
Another up-to-the-minute report from 2008. This is just Japan coming up with ridiculous guidelines that are sure to fail because then they will be shoving huge bills in the faces of corporations who can't possibly make the numbers required. Japan is just trying to foist some of the costs of the UHC on to the private sector through this stupidity. If Japan really cared about metabolic syndrome, like they claim, they would be stomping on smoking and the guidelines wouldn't be arbitrary crap like these are. It's ludicrous to expect every person, with every body type to realistically have the same healthy waist measurement. All that's happening is last minute starvation diets before measuring time and then people are going back to eating what they want. And that is more unhealthy than just leaving them be.
I think you're all forgetting that the median height for Japanese is considerably shorter than for Americans, and the waist size should be considered accordingly.
