The obesity rate in Japan is 3%.

This is ten times lower than the US. There is a popular myth that the Japanese are thin because they eat a diet based on rice, fish and vegetables. (This is related to the mythical “Mediterranean Diet”) The problem with this myth is that it simply isn’t true. The Japanese do eat rice, fish and vegetables, but their diet is far more complex than that. And diet is just one of several factors that affects obesity. In addition to rice, fish and vegetable, the Japanese eat a lot of fat. In fact fat consumption in Japan has increased by two thirds in recent years. They love fried foods. They eat tons of eggs. And I’ve never seen meat so fatty. In the US and Commonwealth nations, there are three grades of beef. Each grade has progressively more fat marbling. In Japan there are 12 grades with the US/Commonwealth grades corresponding to the three leanest Japanese grades. Beef producers in New Zealand have a difficult time selling into the Japanese market because the grass based system they use produces very lean meat. Pork in Japan is very fatty. I had lunch one day that included a 2 inch cube of stewed pork that was over half fat. This dish was very common as I saw it at virtually every grocery store, both raw and prepared.

On a recent trip to Japan I asked some Japanese what they think makes you fat. They all said the same things. Snacking and too much sugar make you fat they said. I asked if rice makes you fat. They said “no”, but they added that when a Japanese person wants to go on a diet, they reduce how much rice they eat. Also, the sumo wrestlers eat a great deal of rice 3-5 bowls per meal and as much as 10 bowls in a single meal. So I think they realize that rice is fattening.

I asked them if eating fat made you fat, they all laughed and said “no, eating fat doesn’t make you fat”. So what differences are there between Japan and the US that affect obesity? The Japanese do not snack like Americans do. There are vending machines everywhere in Japan, but almost none of them sell snacks. They mostly sell drinks. In the US, drink vending machines are full of soft drinks. In Japan they are full of unsweetened tea and coffee beverages for the most part. They even have hot coffee in a steel can. Some of the coffee and tea drinks have milk and some have sweetener. But the Japanese in general seem to have a much lower tolerance for the sweet flavor as they find most American sweet things, “too sweet”. All the Japanese I saw drank unsweetened green tea the way Americans drink soft drinks.

The lifestyle of the average Japanese is very different than the average American. For starters, they work 51 hours more pear year. And most Japanese do not drive to work. Instead they take the train, bike or walk. The roads in Japan are low capacity, and parking is scarce and expensive. Most Japanese walk at least 40 minutes, five times per week. 10 min. from home to the train, 10 min. from the train to work and the reverse on the return trip home. Add in extra trips for lunch or shopping and the miles really add up quickly. They also ride bikes far more often. You see bicycles everywhere in Japan, far more so than in the US.

Finally, I personally believe that the recent “epidemic” of obesity in the US is primarily the result of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). HFCS doesn’t stimulate leptin production, which is the hormone that signals satiety in the brain. Americans ate mountains of sugar for a century (1877-1977) and never got fat. But the approval of HFCS in 1977 corresponds with the beginning of the obesity epidemic in the US. Refer to the graph in this Wikipedia article below. Notice that the two lines for “Overweight, including obese” and “Obese”. Both start a pronounced upward trend in the 1976-80 period. Production of HFCS went from 3 million short tons in 1980 to 8 million in 1995. In 2005, Americans consumed a per-person average of 54lbs. of HFCS. The Japanese eat very little HFCS, they prefer sugar when they want something sweet. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States)

To sum up, here are the reasons why I believe the Japanese obesity rate is 1/10th that of the US:

Japanese eat more fat, and therefore less carbs, than Americans
Japanese chain-drink caffeinated, unsweetened tea, not HFCS soft drinks
Japanese don’t snack to the degree that Americans do
Japanese walk at least 40 min. 5 times per week
Japanese walk/ride bikes more often than Americans

As a postscript I would like to debunk the notion that MSG leads to obesity. While it’s true that researchers inject MSG into rats to make them obese and MSG does get people to eat more food, both phenomena are easily overcome by other factors. I know this is true, because food in Japan is loaded with free glutamate–much in the form of MSG. I’ve seen bowls of it next to stoves. MSG is 99% free glutamate. Free glutamate is the primary substance involved in most savory cooking. When you boil a chicken you are releasing free glutamate, or when you add mushrooms, garlic, onions, tomatoes or Parmesan cheese you are adding large amounts of free glutamate. I have a sensitivity to free glutamate and it doesn’t matter if the food has MSG added or has naturally occurring free glutamate, my reaction is the same. To anyone else with this sensitivity I believe the cause is damage to the blood-brain barrier from things like the annual flu shot. The long term cure appears to be high dose vitamin K2 (5mg/day). This has greatly reduced my sensitivity. For short term relief I find 2000 mg of Taurine taken with a meal to be highly protective. Or if I’m having a reaction, the Taurine can greatly reduce it within 5 min.