Five years ago, Katsura Sugiura had the wiry physique of a sprinter, but marriage, good food and looming middle-age has softened him round the edges. Standing 172cm tall with an 87cm waist, he describes himself as a 'borderline' tubby. 'I don't have a problem with this weight,' says the 37-year-old construction engineer. 'My wife says I look good.'
The Japanese government, however, has other ideas. Once the butt of jokes, the sight of men such as Sugiura sucking in their bellies to hide expanding waistlines has become a lot more serious with the introduction of mandatory 'fat checks' this month for all employees over the age of 39 -
an estimated 56 million people.
Aimed at trimming bulging health costs of more than US$3 billion a year, the government says employees with waistlines that exceed a set limit - 85cm for men and 90cm for women - will be asked to go on exercise and diet programmes and possibly pay higher insurance costs. And companies that fail to reduce their ranks of flabby workers by 10 per cent over the next eight years also face financial penalties.
Sugiura has two years to get back in shape. 'It's causing me a lot of stress,' he says. 'I mean, men are supposed to put on a little weight when they get older, right?'
But the campaign is being taken seriously by large corporations, which must pay millions of dollars in extra contributions to health care for the elderly unless they meet government targets. About 70 per cent of medical expenses for pensioners in Japan is covered by health insurance unions, funded by a mix of company and private premiums. Company contributions will be increased or reduced, depending on their success in getting employees into shape.
