“I swap out rice for beer”: Managing time, stress, and fat in contemporary Japan

Globally, humans are on average getting fatter. Perceptions of fat bodies have overwhelmingly shifted from positive (health and wealth) to negative (laziness and lack of discipline). Public health policies designed to combat obesity often fail to consider their emotional impact, contributing to depression, social exclusion, and fat stigma. Japan approaches increasing body weight with explicit policies aimed at monitoring the body for indicators of metabolic syndrome. Since 2008, the Japanese government has been mandating that working people between the ages of 40 and 74 years old undergo an annual special health examination (metaborikku shōkōkun kenkō shinsa). Despite these long-standing efforts, the rates of “obesity” as defined and measured by the Japanese government remains high with the recent COVID epidemic exacerbating the situation. Health care professionals typically attribute increasing body sizes and weight to poor diet and lack of exercise, while laypeople cite stress or lack of discipline. Increasingly, research shows that fat shame and stigma lead to negative health outcomes. Drawing on ongoing ethnographic research in Osaka, Japan, I explore how explicit and implicit policies contribute to fat stigma, felt shame, and social exclusion. I also discuss behaviors that people engage to negotiate their bodies, felt shame, and the lived experience of weight.