One of America’s top allies, Japan, is taking a bold step that the United States, with its increasingly flabby citizenry, seems likely to consider emulating.

But should it?

Specifically, the Japanese government instituted a national law in April that requires private companies and local governments to measure the waistlines of all Japanese between the ages of 40 and 74.

Those who fail to meet girth guidelines are given three months to lose weight — or else undergo “re-education” in dieting and exercise.
The men’s waists must measure no more than 33.5 inches, and women’s, 35.4 inches. These are thresholds set in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Foundation.

The midriff measurements are supposedly easy guidelines to zero in on those suffering from weight-related ailments — or what the Japanese call “metabo,” short for metabolic syndrome.

“Metabo” is described as a collection of factors that heighten the risk of developing vascular disease and diabetes, such as obesity, high blood pressure and high levels of blood glucose or cholesterol.

According to a June 13 story in The New York Times headlined “Japan, seeking trim waists, decides to measure millions,” at least one city even has an anti-metabo song with lyrics that warn against trouser buttons popping off from obesity to the sound of “pyun-pyun-pyun!”

In prototypically Japanese bizarre-hip fashion, the lyrics continue:

“Goodbye, metabolic. Let’s get our checkups together. Go! Go! Go!

“Goodbye, metabolic. Don’t wait till you get sick. No! No! No!”

The government is requiring Japanese companies to measure the girths of at least 80 percent of their employees — and the companies have to ensure that 10 percent of those deemed “metabo” trim the fat by 2012 and 25 percent of them by 2015.

Otherwise, the companies will incur millions of dollars in penalties — leading some experts to suspect that the government’s super-strict health guidelines are actually aimed at shifting health-care costs onto the private sector.

Some Japanese complained in the Times story that their waistlines were nobody’s business but their own. Others said the government’s real focus should be on Japan’s extremely high smoking rates, among the worst among the world’s industrialized nations. The skeptics suspect that smoking is not being included in the “metabo” campaign because of Japan’s powerful tobacco lobby.

Here in the U.S., we can well imagine just how angry this nation of rugged, albeit pudgy, individualists would be if Uncle Sam instituted such a draconian campaign — a real possibility given the pressures for health-care reform on both political parties.

It might not be such a problem for American men, whose average waistline of 39.0 inches already beats the IDF’s 40-inch guidelines by an inch, but it would be for U.S. women, who now average 36.5 inches — or almost two inches over the IDF ideal of 34.6 inches. (The differences in thresholds for Japan and the U.S. are attributed to variations in height and body type between the two cultures.)

While the Japanese government’s goals of keeping its citizenry slender and healthy are laudable, it is impossible to envision such a system being implemented in the U.S. without great resistance. It would have to be preceded by a major national debate over whether such measures infringe on individual liberty, or whether the public interest in cutting health-care costs outweighs an individual’s right to be fat.

We would much prefer that Americans take it upon themselves to trim down and follow a healthy lifestyle, so this doesn’t become an issue we even have to consider. If only ....