Take Notes America, This Will Be On The Test

So, yes, I live in Japan, and I’m approaching my 2nd year term but in no way do I feel myself shifting to the dark-side-Ex-pat status. No, no, that’s 3 or 4 years down the road. Nor am I in the mind frame that Japan is better than America (U.S. is number one, bitches!). With that being said, Japan has a few tricks up its sleeve…a few idiosyncrasies America should be taking notes on.

Where the Japanese suck in the areas of individuality, confidence, sandwiches, hoagies, pizza, Mexican food, large scary bugs, sweet candy, militaristic rigidity, bureaucracy, English pronunciation, English grammar on t-shirts, house insulation, the consumption of whales/dolphins, and a general distinction between mature adulthood and cartoon characters…

…they compensate for in the areas of comedy, hospitality, general health, low obesity rates, sanitary toilets, socially condoned drunkenness, legal public consumption of alcohol, literacy, reading/book sales, a public sense of tourism, peanut cream, Indian cuisine, horse/chicken/crab/whale sushi and sashimi, mind-boggling animated movies, lush scenery, explosive crop yields, fashion, and the general humbleness that usually goes hand-in-hand with incidents such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I guess some of those could really go either way.

This scribble is about the “General Health/Low Obesity” of Japan.

(I want to quickly mention that I don’t intend to be on any sort of “high horse” here; I know it’s easy for a skinny person to wax and wane about health but I must preface that I simply cannot gain weight. Although this is not as plaguing a problem as obesity, its not exactly a walk in the park considering I’m addicted to sports and athletic activites, have dangerously low fat and currently live in one of the healthiest, low calorie countries.)

If you’re sitting at home thinking how sick you are of hearing about America’s waistline, you may actually find some cool breezes (in awkward places) in this article. Starting now.

Japan teaches health to its population starting from preschool. Kids are presented with the ingredients of each school meal sorted into one of the Carbohydrate/Protein/Vegetable groups on a large board with colorful food magnets. And guess what, you usually find the vegetable group with the highest content of each meal. And, My! What variety! They’re taught why each dish is healthy. Kids aren’t served hotdogs, mystery meat or chicken nuggets; they’re given small servings of protein and carbs in each little dish.

A normal Japanese school lunch includes vegetables, rice, soup, milk, and a small meat or fish portion (in descending order of quantity). No buffets, no desert menu.

Here is one of many varieties of school lunches. Milk, Rice, Fish Tempura, A Salad with Tunafish, a Seaweed and Seed Salad.

The lunch ladies make everything fresh (nothing frozen) and pull together a school lunch that’s around $2.50--although I can't attest for the high schools. Also, kids grow their own vegetables right outside the school while almost all Japanese have a garden (or if pressed for room, at least a few scattered house plants). The idea of nature is linked with their culture.

I don’t think Japan has had this master plan of fresh ingredients from the beginning. I say it’s a happy mistake that Japan doesn’t have the room for massive cow farms (only a few expensive beer-drinking cows in Kobe)…a happy mistake that Japan happens to have a sea or ocean three hours from any place in the country…that Japan has one of the most fertile soils in the world (growing rice with something like 20 times more productivity than most rice growing countries)…that with the endless supply of rice and noodle varieties they have no market for freeze-dried French-fries, etcetera, ad nauseum.

Another example: my local grocery store plays a horribly catchy song that roughly translates to:

fish, fish, fish
we’ll eat fish
and we’ll get smarter

fish, fish, fish
we’ll eat fish
and we’ll get stronger

so everyone let’s eat fish
the fish are waiting for me

Talk about health education.

Japan is basically a magical dreamland for health activists like Ann Cooper. This hyped-up lesbian lunch-lady knows her shit and has an agenda: get kids involved in the lunch process. If you don’t have the twenty minutes to watch her TED video, just know she makes some damn good points about the USDA problems and the dubious food pyramid we currently use... "Go ahead kids, cheesesteaks have meat and bread, the two most important food groups. Eat up!"And here's the truth.

Dan Buettner, who studies the oldest living people in the world, and is considered a “longevity coach”, has some great insight about the common denominators including but not limited to gardening, portion control, and eating plants. He sites Okinawans as one of his long living focus groups. Check out his TED Talk.

I can't speak for other countries, but I know the problem with America is we consider school lunch to be outside of our control.  And, after working in a daycare and a gym program, I know many parents think, “As long as my kid isn’t complaining and isn’t hungry, I’m not worried.” This isn’t the kind of attitude that will help alleviate a diabetes crisis. We’re a bit lazy and our plates are already full with various other priorities. Good thing we have a few rabble-rousing Ann Coopers running around…but I think we might need a few more.