Midriff Crisis

Recently Walt Disney has decided to ban ads for junk food on its television channels, radio stations and websites, hoping to stop kids from eating badly and become obese. The reason?  ... more than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7%) are obese. I guess they are not too concerned about the person having obesity-related conditions like heart disease, stroke, diabetes as much as the costs associated with obesity which is expected to run over $344 billion. Non health-related changes include replacing wall-mounted toilets with floor models to better support obese patients. better buses for heavier riders, more gasoline consumption etc. Its all about money finally. 


May be they should learn a few things from the Japanese. Thanks to an Anti-obesity law passed in 2008, the middle aged Japanese across the nation are pulling up their shirts to have their midriff measured. A male with a waistline of more than 33.5 inches is considered fat. For a female, the limit is 35.4 inches. Those with excessive junk in the trunk are forced to undergo counseling with a doctor. The country simply said, “Heyy buddy, you look fat in that outfit. In fact you look fat in every outfit because ..get this,  YOU ARE FAT.  You need to see someone about that, man.” That's not it. For every grotesquely fat employee, the company gets hit by a fine. 


On one hand, this seems absolutely crazy and sounds like the kind of horrible eugenic policy that Hitler would admire. But when you think about it, it seems that only the truly crazy ones can get this thing done. The goal of all this is to prevent Japan from experiencing an obesity epidemic like other industrialized nations (read US)  Less the overweight people, lower the health care costs. It's time America institutes some of its own bizarre laws to have slimmer people. 


India is not far behind. The overall obesity average is 12%. Punjab is almost in par with America - 30% males and 37% females !!!  States like Bihar, MP and Bengal have the lowest rate 5-6%. Is India doing anything at all?  The answer is No. We did nothing for educating people on Diabetes and today we proudly have the title of being the Diabetic capital of the world. 

Obesity is not a personal problem. Individual choices would help though. But any intelligent government with reasonable long sightedness (not ours definitely) would consider it as a public health problems and tackle it accordingly. I have often wondered why many people are comfortable in their plus sized clothes. Their logic probably is 

"When we lose twenty pounds…we may be losing the best twenty pounds we have!

 We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty.”

- Woody Allen