Japan's Metabo Mistake

It all started a few years ago when Japan’s Ministry of Health began drumming up awareness of “metabolic syndrome”—a collection of factors linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Since introducing this syndrome­­—the symptoms of which include obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol—the Japanese government has successfully convinced its citizenry of the urgency of this epidemic. “Metabo” is the new hip word for obesity. In April of this year, the Ministry of Health instituted a national anti-metabo campaign.

According to this dictate, local companies and governments must measure the waistlines of all Japanese citizens between the ages of 40 and 74. That amounts to about 56 million people. Individuals who exceed the thresholds set by the International Diabetes Federation for Japan—35.4 inches for women and 33.5 for men—and have a weight-related ailment are told to lose the extra inches. If they fail to do so within three months, they receive dieting guidance, and if they continue to keep the weight on after six months, they face further re-education.

Although individuals will not be penalized for surpassing government limits, companies face hefty financial penalties if their collective workforce falls short of the targets within the allotted time.

Though some argued that the guidelines were too strict—especially for men—this mandatory slim-down program met with little resistance. In Amagasaki, the city’s anti-metabo theme song blasts at local gyms:

“Goodbye, metabolic. Let’s get our checkups together. Go! Go! Go!

Goodbye, metabolic. Don’t wait till you get sick. No! No! No!”

Maybe as an American I’m just desensitized to obesity, but the last time I went to Tokyo, I don’t think I saw a single fat person. And that was in March, right before the slim-down program went into effect. It seemed like a memo for the States had gotten mixed up somewhere along the Pacific. Why was Japan, one of the slimmest countries in the world, where sweetened red beans count as dessert, undertaking such an ambitious weight loss program?

Puzzling over this question, I was excited to learn that the executive director of Harvard University Dining Services, Ted Mayer, and the coordinator of the Food Literacy Project, Theresa A. McCulla ’04, were headed to Japan. The HUDS pair were invited to speak at the University of Tokyo’s Food Symposium, the event commemorating the start of the new semester. I assumed they’d be speaking about the Food Literacy Program’s power to combat metabo.

“Why, exactly, were you invited to Japan?” I asked the pair before their trip, hoping the answer would clarify the metabo mystery.

“To be honest,” McCulla said, “we’re not too sure.”

When the two returned a week later, their report was baffling. Metabo had nothing to do with the talk. Apparently the University of Tokyo was interested in the Food Literacy Project only in terms of its ability to foster a community. Professor Yasushi, the sociologist who arranged the Food Symposium, has been closely working with Dean of Freshman Thomas A. Dingman ’67 to create a more integrated campus for first-years.

Food, Professor Yasushi seemed to believe, had the power to unite. He hoped that establishing a version of the Food Literacy Project at the University of Tokyo would help establish that sense of community. I can’t argue with the fact that food is intimately linked to the rhythms of daily life. I also can’t refute the fact that extra attention to food awareness is never a bad thing. But this solution seemed just as baffling as the anti-metabo campaign.

For one thing, the Japanese should be the ones teaching Americans about food awareness. “The Japanese are much further ahead than we are in terms of appreciation of food,” McCulla admitted. Like us, they emphasize local and seasonal food—most of Japan’s produce is locally grown. Chestnuts, pumpkins, mushrooms and sweet potatoes, in-season treats, regularly adorned every dish. McCulla observed that the students’ meals were balanced and they never left waste on their trays.

And call me a cynic, but the pumpkin patch visits that HUDS sponsors don’t make me feel any greater connection to the Harvard student body. Maybe Adams dining hall does makes me feel more connected to the house, but the monitors describing the “Putanesca” sauce don’t really make me beam with Crimson pride.

Suddenly it hit me.

The reason Professor Yasushi’s solution seemed so off was because he was trying to solve his university’s structural problem with Harvard’s cultural solution. Their campus lacked a sense of community not because they lacked any program to institute that integration, but because they fundamentally lacked the infrastructure to enable it. Run like a European university, the University of Tokyo offers no on-campus residences. With up to two hours of commuting time and only final exams counting towards grades, students rarely attend class. Without students physically on campus, it’s no wonder that the sense of community is lacking.

If the University of Tokyo were really intent on building a community at school, they would do better to focus their efforts on building dorms or restructuring their classes. In terms of food, something as simple as adding more chairs to the dining hall or adding vegetarian options to the menu would do infinitely more than a sustainable food fair. According to Yoshi Oi, a third-year student at the university, “There are not enough seats in the dining halls so a lot of students cannot have [a meal] there.” Harvard’s Food Literacy Project is simply not what they need.

That’s when I realized what was so off about the anti-metabo campaign. Japan’s problems are too specific to pretend that the solutions for other countries are going to work for them, too. Instead of piggybacking onto the obesity epidemic, government officials should address Japan’s specific concerns. High smoking rates (among the highest of the developed nations) are infinitely more pressing than obesity. Ditto for stomach cancer (start a campaign against pickled foods! They’re the proven culprits). Japan, stop trying to fix your cuts with America’s casts. Maybe the cast will stop the bleeding, but a band-aid is all you need.

­—Columnist Rebecca A. Cooper can be reached at cooper3@fas.harvard.edu.