Monitoring health and the body: Anthropometry, lifestyle risks, and the Japanese obesity crisis

Journal of Japanese Studies

Volumn 38, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 55-84

  Manzenreiter, Wolfram ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA   (Austria)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84856783809     PISSN: 00956848     EISSN: 15494721     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jjs.2012.0031     Document Type: Article

References (120)

1. Debates that are ubiquitous refer to public safety, homeland security, environmental hazards, whether natural or man-made, and the dismantling of social institutions, to mention but a few. Literature on body-harming issues between starvation, dermatological irritation, and noise pollution are abundant in the archives of the World Health Organization and national or international bodies in charge of public health. For the academic debate, on organized crime and political corruption,
2. Michael Woodiwiss, Gangster Capitalism: The United States and the Global Rise of Organized Crime (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005)
3. on drug addiction and traffi cking, see the annual Global Illicit Drug Trends, published by the United Nations Offi ce on Drug Control and Crime Prevention; on food safety,
4. P. S. Belton and Theresa Belton, eds., Food, Science and Society: Exploring the Gap between Expert Advice and Individual Behavior (Berlin: Springer, 2003)
5. on the food supply crisis, see Julian Cribb, The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010)
6. on medical genetics, see David Ewing Duncan, Experimental Man: What One Man's Body Reveals about His Future, Your Health, and Our Toxic World (Hoboken: Wiley, 2009)
7. on environmental health, see Ronald F. Dodson and Samuel P. Hammar, eds., Asbestos: Risk Assessment, Epidemiology, and Health Effects (Boca Raton: CRC, 2006)
8. on the health communication crisis, see John H. Powers, ed., The Social Construction of SARS: Studies of a Health Communication Crisis (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2008)
9. on health and fi tness, see Shari L. Dworkin and Faye Linda Wachs, Body Panic: Gender, Health, and the Selling of Fitness (New York: New York University Press, 2009).
10. A good overview of theoretical traditions and conceptual applications is provided by Andrew Blaikie, ed., The Body: Critical Concepts in Sociology (New York: Routledge, 2004).
11. For an introduction to sociological and anthropological aspects of fatness in time and space, see Igor de Garine and Nancy Pollock, eds., Social Aspects of Obesity (London: Routledge, 1995), which also features a chapter on Japan by Ishige Naomichi.
12. Michael Gard and Jan Wright, The Obesity Epidemic: Science, Morality, and Ideology (New York: Routledge, 2005).
13. World Health Organization, Global Infobase, https://apps.who.int/infobase/, retrieved August 9, 2011.
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16. http://www.idf.org/metabolic-syndrome, retrieved August 9, 2011.
17. Ulrich Beck, Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1986). It is not my intention to provide a systematic review of the risk-society theory. For a critical review including references to alternative conceptions, advancements of the argument into different disciplines, and major shortcomings of the original theses,
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21. Beck, Risikogesellschaft, pp. 25-29.
22. Ibid., pp. 29-31.
23. Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991).
24. Since Emile Durkheim's study on suicide (Suicide: A Study in Sociology [London: Kegan Paul, 1975]), this has been a common observation on the destabilizing effect of the transition from traditional community to modern society.
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26. 13. Ibid., p. 87.
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41. Steckel, "Stature and Standard of Living", pp. 1904, 1916-19.
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43. Mosk, Making Health Work.
44. Bassino, "Income and Inequality".
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46. Mosk, Making Health Work, p. 20
47. Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, ed., Nihon tokei nenkan: Heisei 20-nen (Japan Statistical Yearbook 2008) (Tokyo: Statistics Bureau, MIC, 2008), p. 672.
48. Mosk, Making Health Work, pp. 131-34,
49. Arai Setsuo, Naitoß Junko, and Morita Shigeru, Kenko bunka taiikugaku (Kobe: Rokko Shuppan, 1988), pp. 12-13.
50. Komiya, "Nihonjin no taisosei, pp. 4-6.
51. Ibid., p. 2
52. Statistics Bureau, ed., Nihon tokei nenkan: Heisei 20-nen, p. 672.
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54. World Health Organization, The World Health Report 2002: Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life (Geneva: WHO, 2002), p. 60.
55. Komiya, "Nihonjin no taisosei
56. Matsuzawa Yußji, "Nihonjin no kenko kadai o metaborikku shindoromu kara kangaeru, Kagaku no doko, No. 5 (2006), pp. 8-13.
57. Sakurai Hideya, "Healthy Japan 21, Japan Medical Association Journal, Vol. 46, No. 2 (2003), pp. 47-49.
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60. Matsuzawa, "Nihonjin no kenko kadai," p. 9.
61. International Diabetes Foundation, The IDF Consensus Worldwide Defi nition of the Metabolic Syndrome (Brussels: IDF, 2006), p. 4.
62. Yamamoto Hidenori, "Iryo seido kaikaku ni okeru tokutei kenshin, hoken shido no ichizuke, Hoken iryo kagaku, Vol. 57, No. 1 (2008), pp. 3-8.
63. Threshold values used for the diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome as implemented by the Japanese government in 2008: diabetes mellitus: raised fasting plasma glucose, (FPG) ≥ 100 mg/dL (5.6 mmol/L), or previously diagnosed type 2 diabetes; hyperlipidia: raised triglycerides ≥ 150 mg/dL (1.7 mmol/L) or specifi c treatment for this lipid abnormality; hypercholesterolemia: reduced HDL cholesterol < 40 mg/dL (1.03 mmol/L) in males or < 50 mg/dL (1.29 mmol/L) in females, or specifi c treatment for this lipid abnormality; hypertension: raised blood pressure, systolic BP ≥ 130 or diastolic BP ≥ 85 mm Hg, or treatment of previously diagnosed hypertension.
64. Yamamoto, "Iryo seido kaikaku," p. 5.
65. Ibid., p. 6.
66. Data on memberships are for March 2010. See the table on the MHLW website: http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/iryouhoken/iryouhoken01/01.html, retrieved August 9, 2011. Target values according to an online report published by the Japan Preventive Association of Lifestyle Related Diseases in October 2010: http://www.seikatsusyukanbyo.com/calendar/2010/000854.php, retrieved August 9, 2011.
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71. Norimitsu Onishi, "Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions," New York Times online, June 13, 2008.
72. Ogushi Yoichi, Metabo no wana: "byonin" ni sareru kenkona hitobito (Tokyo: Kadokawa SS Komyunikeshonzu, 2007). 53. 164-LH-budget 5-1-127. References for statements in the Diet are indexed as follows: Diet session number-chamber-committee-meeting number-speaker number. All state ments published in the Proceedings of the National Diet of Japan can be retrieved online from http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp.
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90. 164-LH-health-21-103. More recent examples shed critical light on the usefulness of metabolic syndrome as a risk predictor: in 2008, the medical journal Lancet published the results of two broad clinical trials searching for links between metabolic identisyndrome and risks for cardiovascular disease and diabetes among the elderly. Since both studies failed to fi nd statistically signifi cant differences for waist size or other symptoms related to metabolic syndrome, they came to the identical conclusion of rejecting the benefi ts of metabolic syndrome in clinical medicine. For a digest of the studies.
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112. Japan External Trade Organization, Japan's Growing Health-Food Market (Tokyo: JETRO, 2008), pp. 1-2. Neutral fat-related products are food products or functional dietary supplements that in general do not increase body fat and cholesterol levels or, in the case of foods rich in polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat, purportedly reduce the total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.
113. Japan Food Newspaper online, June 3, 2009.
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115. Ibid., p. 400.
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118. Sakurai, "Healthy Japan 21, p. 47.
119. Wheatley, Disciplining Bodies at Risk, p. 199.
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