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Popular
diet among Japanese women
What
can you learn from the Japanese to lose weight
By Eimi Graham
 Among young women in Japan, being
slim
is really cool despite the fact that they are already quite slim by global
standards. Slim models,
idols, and actresses appear on TV all
the time talking about how they are able to stay slim.
In order to cater to the desire of Japanese women desperate to lose some
weight, you see numerous advertisements about dieting in Japanese magazines for
women. In most of these
advertisements, the main message is the same - TV talents and stars who claim to
have tried the product and then reporting how many kilograms they have lost and
that they are really happy getting a perfect
body.
The diet boom in Japan is impacting not just the adults.
Nowadays, even high school girls and junior high school girls try to go
on a diet. Interestingly, most of
the people who try to diet are not so obese in the first place if generally
accepted medical standards for obesity are used.
Japanese women and girls try to diet because they want to wear the most
fashionable clothes in Japan.
I was curious about this, so I conducted a rather
unscientific survey on the streets about this. Here are some interesting findings from my survey for the
18-40 years old group:
|
Height
|
Percentage of women in the respective height group
|
Body fat
|
Percentage of women in the respective body fat
group
|
|
Height 149cm (<5') and under
|
10%
|
15% to 20%
|
86%
|
|
150cm to 159cm (5' to 5'4")
|
65%
|
21% to 22%
|
9%
|
|
160cm to 164cm (5'4" to 5'6")
|
20%
|
23%
|
4%
|
|
165cm (5'6") and over
|
5%
|
24%
|
1%
|
|
|
|
Among the women with height ranging
149 cm and less, 79% of
the women have their waists in the range 56 cm to 58 cm and the weight is in the
35 to 39 kg range. In the 150 to
159 cm height group, the weight range is 40 to 45 kg and the average waist size
is 61 cm. For the 160 to 164 cm
height group, the weight range is wider with 97% of the women reporting it to be
between 40 and 49 kg. However,
among really tall Japanese women, that is 165 cm and higher, 86% of the women
have their weight between 46 and 49 kg. (Related article:
Book review of
"Why Japanese Women Don't Get Fat") |
 These statistics clearly show that
Japanese women are
obsessed about how slim they look. Compared to other
oriental women, they might very well be
overly slim already despite the fact that the younger generation may have a
better body built than the previous generation. This is in contrast
to other cultures, especially the US, where the concern about being slim is only
modestly strong. In some other cultures, being a bit chubby is actually
appreciated.
(Related:
Diet makeover)
I asked them another question to better understand their
perspectives on what weight they consider to be high enough to describe them as
fat (Why am I
fat?).
To my shock, 68% of the women think that 52 kg or above is
too much weight for a Japanese woman. Some
20% of the women even go to the extreme to say that 50 kg is the limit for a
Japanese women before they would get concerned and go on a diet.
Recommended: How
to lose weight and keep it off?
Rapid
weight loss program Making
dieting a habit
Lunch Box Diet
Looking
slim like Japanese ladies
Weight loss tips
from Japanese women Losing
weight to become slim
3 hour diet
review
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