Some people will say that everyone in Japan is really skinny. Do you think this is the case?
What about Sumo Wrestlers?
I have seen some Blogs claiming that Japanese women don't eat enough food.
I think this is also a generalisation. When I did some research on the internet, I found that whilst there has been an increase in cases of eating disorders, the average BMI for Japanese women is, in fact, healthy. This didn't surprise me at all.
When I lived with host families in Japan, I could never complain of small meals. Breakfast and dinner was a big affair with various bowls of delicious foods to eat. Some people would like to eat big, fluffy French Toast, some fruit, noodles and vegetables with hot chocolate, fruit juice and tea for breakfast. Others would like to eat a bowl of rice, nato, crunchy bamboo shoots, fish, miso soup, some fruit, sea weed and vegetables along with vegetable juice and tea. And others will eat two or three times more than that. Some people won't eat breakfast at all, but not where I lived. What is eaten and portion size depends on the individual, really.
A Typical Highschool Lunch.
So, why, you wonder, do so many Japanese women look like this:
Honestly, I don't know how to answer this question.
It's true that some women do look like this (well, obviously, otherwise these models wouldn't be featured), but from my obeservations, it wasn't normal or even that common.
So, instead, I'm going to try to examine where this idea came from - when people think that most Japanese women look like the people in the above pictures.
One reason I can think of is body image pressure from the media. What we see on tv and in magazines isn't necessarily a reflection of reality.
In Sweden, for example, a modelling agency was accused of trying to recruit patients with anorexia nervosa from a mental hospital. Unattainable body images aren't exactly rare on a global level. But, when someone sees the same look on tv, in magazines and in computer ads all the time then perhaps that can fool them into thinking that images are average when they're not. And then, when they see someone in real life that looks like the tv image, it just reaffirms their distorted beliefs.
Another reason I can think of is that perhaps the individual that is being observed is actually still a teenager. Models of 'adult sized' clothing are being recruited at as young as 13 or 16 in countries outside of Japan. Similarly, members of the highly publicised AKB48 band, for example, tend to be teenagers or tweenagers. The teen body shape is often in the process of development physically and so usually it just isn't possible for a woman to look naturally the same as a teenage girl.
I think it's a real pity; though, that people see these images and think they have to look like them.
I'm really curious about your experiences after reading this. I've lived in two prefectures for five years all up now and I would say that somewhere between 95~98% of women aged between 15 and 25 I have seen are exactly this shape. I have also noticed a lot of disordered eating and the normalisation of "fat talk" in schools (teachers introducing themselves to a new class with "my goal for the year is to diet", teachers asking if "any boys want more rice?" and refusing to give the girls additional food, the school nurses doing hight and weight checks for elementary aged girls behind a screen so that they don't have to be worried about anyone seeing their weight, with the implication that it is something to be embarrassed about). I'm not saying this to discount your experiences, Japan is a much more diverse country than people often think. I'm just curious about how we have had such different experiences. I wonder if it is regional (although I lived in a big city in Honshu before and now live in a rural town in Kyushu), socio-economic, or what?
ReplyDelete95-98% of women between 18 and 25 do not look like that at all. At least, not according to statistics gathered from research conducted in Japan. So, I think your experience was probably not of the norm. That's not to say it doesn't happen, though. It's unfortunate that the teachers at your school had that kind of attitude towards food as it could be harmful for his or her students.
ReplyDeleteIn my first highschool, weight checks were not conducted behind a screen. Instead, everyone lined up behind the scales and weights were measured quite openly. After our weight and height checks, we compared our BMIs. In both highschools I went to, eating from a previously packed lunch was far more common than eating from the canteen. However, at the canteen, everyone was free to order whatever meal they chose. Instead of ordering in person, students would select their meal from a machine and get a ticket from there.
Yes, perhaps it is a socio-economic thing. It's true that more and more people have been experiencing eating disorders in Japan (and in other countries too). But, not to the extent where most of the people in Japan have one.
ReplyDeleteI didn't write about food intake on here to try and detract from raising awareness towards eating disorders in Japan. I wrote about it on here because I noticed a lot of perfectly healthy commenters on YouTube (as well as some Bloggers) beating themselves up about being too fat. In their minds, the models in the images are normal and they (themselves) are fat. But, I've never met an adult before who looks like the models in the above images. And, from my experiences, it was normal for teenagers to eat plenty of food.