Are you a fatass? No diploma for you!

[Skjie]

I think it's funny that people think that all fat people eat alot/bad food. I actually eat quite healthy and decent portions. I just find it very difficult to get enough exercise in as I work 40 hours/week desk job and all full time 4th year University (probably average 40~60 hours/week including all classwork). Taking an hour a day at the gym is a luxury I don't have.

[Howard Roark]

Then again I tried to take African American history for an "easy A" and fuckingFAILED like a mofo.

I've been on a nigga crusade ever since.

explains so much ahahahahaha

[archibaldcrane]

I think it's funny that people think that all fat people eat alot/bad food.

I think they eat more calories than they need to, and therefore they swell up until simply existing burns enough calories to have their weight stabilize at the weight of "fat".

Wait, I don't mean "I think" - that's just what happens.

[wop]

Be fucking glad you guys are NOT IN JAPAN.

It's against the LAW to be fat.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/j...eaking-the-law
http://english.kompas.com/read/xml/2...l.in.Japan.Now

TOKYO, Japan — In Japan, being thin isn’t just the price you pay for fashion or social acceptance. It’s the law.

So before the fat police could throw her in pudgy purgatory, Miki Yabe, 39, a manager at a major transportation corporation, went on a crash diet last month. In the week before her company’s annual health check-up, Yabe ate 21 consecutive meals of vegetable soup and hit the gym for 30 minutes a day of running and swimming.

“It’s scary,” said Yabe, who is 5 feet 3 inches and 133 pounds. “I gained 2 kilos [4.5 pounds] this year.”

In Japan, already the slimmest industrialized nation, people are fighting fat to ward off dreaded metabolic syndrome and comply with a government-imposed waistline standard. Metabolic syndrome, known here simply as “metabo,” is a combination of health risks, including stomach flab, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, that can lead to cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Concerned about rising rates of both in a graying nation, Japanese lawmakers last year set a maximum waistline size for anyone age 40 and older: 85 centimeters (33.5 inches) for men and 90 centimeters (35.4 inches) for women.

In the United States, the Senate and House health care reform bills have included the so-called “Safeway Amendment,” which would offer reductions in insurance premiums to people who lead fitter lives. The experience of the Japanese offers lessons in how complicated it is to legislate good health.

Though Japan’s “metabo law” aims to save money by heading off health risks related to obesity, there is no consensus that it will. Doctors and health experts have said the waistline limits conflict with the International Diabetes Federation’s recommended guidelines for Japan. Meantime, ordinary residents have been buying fitness equipment, joining gyms and popping herbal pills in an effort to lose weight, even though some doctors warn that they are already too thin to begin with.

The amount of “food calories which the Japanese intake is decreasing from 10 years ago,” said Yoichi Ogushi, professor of medicine at Tokai University and one of the leading critics of the law. “So there is no obesity problem as in the USA. To the contrary, there is a problem of leanness in young females.”

One thing’s certain: Most Japanese aren’t taking any chances.

Companies are offering discounted gym memberships and developing special diet plans for employees. Residents are buying new products touted as fighting metabo, including a $1,400 machine called the Joba that imitates a bucking bronco. The convenience store chain Lawson has opened healthier food stores called Natural Lawson, featuring fresh fruits and vegetables.

Under Japan’s health care coverage, companies administer check-ups to employees once a year. Those who fail to meet the waistline requirement must undergo counseling. If companies do not reduce the number of overweight employees by 10 percent by 2012 and 25 percent by 2015, they could be required to pay more money into a health care program for the elderly. An estimated 56 million Japanese will have their waists measured this year.

Though Japan has some of the world’s lowest rates of obesity — less than 5 percent, compared to nearly 35 percent for the United States — people here on average have gotten heavier in the past three decades, according to government statistics. More worrisome, in a nation that is aging faster than any other because of long life spans and low birth rates, the number of people with diabetes has risen from 6.9 million in 1997 to 8.9 million last year.

Health care costs here are projected to double by 2020 and represent 11.5 percent of gross domestic product. That’s why some health experts support the metabo law.

“Due to the check up, there is increased public awareness on the issue of obesity and metabolic syndrome,” said James Kondo, president of the Health Policy Institute Japan, an independent think tank. “Since fighting obesity is a habit underlined by heightened awareness, this is a good thing. The program is also revolutionary in that incentivizes [companies] to reduce obesity.”

[wop]

What I don't get is why women's waist limit is set higher than men? Multiple births-weight-gain?

[Ahkow]

bigger waist = bigger ass ....

i am sure most guys go for that ...

[Howard Roark]

how big is yours cutie?

[Ahkow]

nicer and jucier than j.lo ...

[wop]

It was actually mentioned on UK television last week (Harry Hill show), that it is illegal now to be fat in Japan.
http://tinyurl.com/yjssev9
Hmmmm ? What's gonna happen to these...

[Xno Kappa]

I think it's funny fat people who don't have specific health issues still try to find excuses despite all we know today. A basic yet effective workout regiment can be nothing more then cardio for 30 minutes at a time, 3-5 times a week. To say you can't possibly dedicate an hour and a half a week at the very minimum to exercise reeks of bullshit. Stop driving up our health care premiums and take your fat ass for a jog.

[Jer]

They had another story on this, I just found some of the lines amusing.

A small number of its 2,000 students are gathered around a salad bar contemplating the healthy option. A much larger crowd has convened around a KFC franchise next door selling "large popcorn chicken", double crunch sandwiches and hot wings.

As in numbers, or poundage, you decide.

"I pay over $20,000 a year to come to Lincoln, so for them to tell me I have to take this one class, I don't think it's right at all. If they want us to lose weight, expand the gym, don't tell us we won't graduate."

Yes, because if they expanded the gym, I'm sure you would go use it.

"I was very upset when they told me I had 'tested' into the class. I think the policy should be scrapped — it's just too much to tell people they won't graduate unless they do what they're told."

Stop the motherfucking presses.

[Yuri-G]

that last part is too much. "how dare they tell me I won't graduate if I don't pass my classes? I paid for this degree!"

[aduidarnenye]

What I don't get is why women's waist limit is set higher than men? Multiple births-weight-gain?

Men who gain weight around the waist are more at risk of heart attacks than women.

Japan has a tiny birth rate, most women there have only had 1 child, if that. Perhaps a way to encourage it?

Wouldn't this law make it against the law to be pregnant since your waist would certainly stretch past that? I do hope they covered that.