"Tax on fats": Is it true that completeness is prohibited in Japan and New Zealand
Dmitry Kurkin
"In Japan is considered illegal have a waist more than 90 centimeters for men and 80 centimeters for women ", said Anna Popova, head of Rospotrebnadzor, in a recent interview, discussing how her department was studying foreign experience in fighting obesity among the population. This reservation may be unintentional, superfluous he once said that the state does not leave attempts to claim the rights to the bodies of its citizens (by itself, for their own benefit), and serves as a good example of how Fetfob rhetoric sneaks into the discussion about the need to monitor their health.
So what does foreign experience say? The so-called "Metabo Law", which Popova refers to, adopted in 2008, gave rise to many network legends that "it is forbidden to be fat in Japan." Employees of Japanese enterprises and state institutions of the age group from 40 to 75 years really oblige to undergo an annual medical examination, during which they also measure their waists. And if that exceeds the approved rate, employees can register, for example, courses of exercise. But of course, no one in Japan would ever think to declare such people outside the law.
The very name of the ruling (“metabo”, a polite euphemism for denoting overweight, was precisely invented to remove the negative connotations associated with the diagnosis of obesity) emphasizes that the Japanese physicians were not going to shame their compatriots for gaining weight. Responsibility for the health of their employees lies primarily with Japanese employers, who must take care that their subordinates eat properly and do not lead an overly sedentary lifestyle. And in a country that has made improving the health of its citizens one of its priorities (so much so that it is criticized as excessive care), this concern is complex: as you might guess, the annual medical examination is not limited to measuring the waist alone.
Popova also cites the example of New Zealand, where "when obtaining citizenship, you must present a certificate stating that the body mass index does not exceed 35". It is not entirely clear how this experience can help Rospotrebnadzor, but we need to clarify that this example is half-hearted. New Zealand does not really want to give citizenship to people who have serious health problems - including those related to obesity - in order not to treat them at their own expense later (in official recommendations this is formulated more streamlined: "make sure that people enter New Zealand will not lead to excessive financial burden on the health care system "). But body mass index is just one of the possible red flags that the migration services can pay attention to.
It is impossible to dehumanize completeness as something “illegal” and thereby aggravate the psychological state of people already subject to constant pressure.
And if we talk about international experience, then it is worth mentioning at least the "tax on fats", introduced in Denmark in 2011 and affecting food products containing more than 2.3% of saturated fats. A year later, the tax was canceled as ineffective: with its main task - to improve the diet of the Danes (they simply began to go to the neighboring Sweden and Germany more often for food) - he did not cope and eventually gave little, except for a headache for the local food industry and retail chains. Hopefully, this result will be taken into account by Rospotrebnadzor.
This does not mean that the state should not pay attention to the problem of obesity, the scale of which is comparable with a pandemic. It is possible and necessary to approach its discussion from different positions - including from the position of product quality control, which is under the jurisdiction of Rospodtrebnzdor. And in this sense, Anna Popova, speaking about nutrition monitoring, starting from general education schools, expresses a perfectly justified concern.
But do not start this conversation with a measuring tape. It is impossible to dehumanize completeness as something “illegal” and thereby aggravate the psychological state of people already subject to constant pressure due to their weight. And all the more strange to do this, referring to someone else's experience, which is based on just love for people, and not a veiled fatschaming. This should be obvious to the organizers of any campaign to combat obesity, if they want the campaign to be at least a bit successful.
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