Big Brother is measuring you

"I had my annual physical last week," my friend told me. "They measured my waistline, and apparently I have metabolic syndrome. Everybody in my department has it. We've all been given medicine."

I'd love to know what this medicine is. Diet pills? Is half of Japan going to be speeding from taking too many diet pills? How exciting! (Or have diet pills changed since I was a university student and I knew people addicted to them?)

'Metabo,' or 'Metabolic syndrome' is the new politically correct word in Japan for 'fat.' Metabo is a huge thing right now. The government has launched a campaign against it. My friend is lucky she is not being sent to reeducation classes.

My friend is not fat. She is a slim, healthy person who walks a lot. The required waist size is not adjusted for height or body type, which seems odd to me. Can it really be true that every woman should have the same waist measurement? We decided that this whole thing was a giant plot by the pharmaceutical companies and the government to make money from a non-existent problem.

According to what I've read and heard every employee has to be checked. I have not been checked, however. Perhaps this is just another of those things where part-time workers (about a third of employees in Japan, I think) are going to slip through the net. No health insurance benefits, no national pension, no holiday pay, and no getting waistlines measured. For once I am pleased not to be included. (I just measured my waistline myself and I'm well under, but STILL. My waist measurement is nobody's business except my own.)

But I'm wondering – if you are a full-timer, and metabo is classified as such a huge problem, can you take time off work for it? 'My metabo is playing up' would be a lovely excuse for a sick day.