Prohibited fat

Concern about being overweight is reaching unimaginable, as in Japan where laws apply to lower rates of overweight among its citizens, including setting limits for waist size.

Japanese lawmakers just impose a maximum waist of 85 inches for men and 90 inches for women as standards for determining whether a person suffers from obesity.

This sudden concern arises from the fear or Metabolic Syndrome as it is called in Japan, "metabolites" which is a combination of risks of having high cholesterol, high blood pressure, among others, which in turn can lead to heart disease and diabetes .

Against this the companies have begun to perform annual checkups for their employees and those not within the size limit should go to counseling. It is estimated that more than 56 million Japanese will be measured waist.

Fat is an economic factor, for example, many companies plan to reduce obesity in their workforce by 10% for 2012, or must pay more money to health care for the elderly.

However, the measure also has its critics as Yoichi Ogushi, a professor of medicine at Tokai University, who notes that in this country there is an obesity problem, but otherwise as the level of calories they eat in the Japanese dropped past 10 years and there is a serious problem of low birth weight among younger women.