News Marathon 7: Obesity Survey: The situation of salarymen who can’t lose weight

Yahoo News:

Kaoh Corporation presented the results of their “Life and Times of the Modern Fat Salaryman” survey on May 30. The survey highlighted a situation where more than 60% of salarymen know that their lifestyles make it “easy for them to get fat” yet “eat fast” “take meals at irregular times” and can’t change their habits or lose weight.

The survey assembled data from 323 married salarymen aged 30-59 living in the Tokyo area. According to the survey, 43% have tried to lose weight but 57% of those actually got fatter. The life habits of those who “fatten easily” are most directly expressed in how they spend their days off, with more than half of them saying “I prefer to relax on my days off,” “I’m a night person,” or that a tiring day causes them to “spend my days off lazing around the house.”

The weight-losing “winners” all commonly “took the stairs instead of the elevator,” “get off the train one station before my destination and walk the difference,” regularly engaging in strenuous exercise. All subjects were equipped with walking meters, and it was found that the daily steps taken by the “winners” averaged 14,900 while the “losers” only took 8546.

Kaoh says of the survey, “The 1500-step difference in steps between the two groups amounts to a walking distance of about 1 kilometer. Weight loss requires general efforts to improve eating habits, but one cannot forget to make a conscious effort to move his or her body even during a busy day of work. (Mainichi Shimbun, by Yasushi Kumagai)