Dorie’s Different Reality

O Wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world
That hath such people in’t!” -Shakespeare, The Tempest

There is never any good news anymore! From Japan comes news that the government has implemented “Fat Police” in a national effort to prevent their becoming fat like the Americans. Japan has national health service and it’s a cultural goal to stay thin.

Here’s the scoop: War on Waistlines
In this article, the dreaded word “reeducation” is used . What are they going to do, round up the obese, put them in a camp and feed them sardines and water?

This is scary as hell! Now it’s personal! I used to be a skinny child, then I was a chubby teenager and for more years than not, I’ve been an overweight woman. It has been the source of much emotional pain in my life. Seriously.

When I was growing up, being overweight was treated like a character defect. And you know how kind 8th graders are…it was hell. The only plus, if you can call it that, is that I learned to sew early on because there was NOTHING for a young woman bigger than a size 14.

Okay, three quick breaths- it’s over, it’s gone, it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Now if our government were to implement some health programs. Like say, I could get the lap band operation for free, I’d totally do it. Nah, what they’ll do, I betcha, they’ll start adding surcharges to health insurance. Or if there’s a National Health system- there will be “fat tax”. Instead of “live and let live”, there will be ostracism.

This fellow is a revered national sports hero. He’s also not skinny.

I imagine that Japanese people are getting bigger for the same reasons as us- change in diet to processed foods and less exercise.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.