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Did you know that if you take a flight from America to Tokyo, get an expert to help you do some fieldwork and make some careful observations of the people walking around the streets of Japan, that would be a complete waste of time because it only takes about 15 seconds to realize that Americans are way fatter than Japanese people. What is considered fat here is like considered normal in the United States. When I first came here, I felt like I was obese. America's obesity rate is nearly 10 times that of Japan. Japan's is 4.5% but America's is 40%. Are Japanese people just thin or are they actually healthier?
No. Yeah, they're like way healthier than Americans. Japan has about 1/ half the diabetes, 1/3 the death from heart disease, 1/3 the depression, 1/4 the rate of anxiety disorders, and 1/8 the childhood ADHD of America. So, how do they do it? Well, there's seven specific things that we have to look at to see how they manage to stay so healthy. Let's start with something really simple. Japanese people eat a lot more real food. With processed foods making up 58.3% of their diet, Americans eat about twice as much processed food as Japanese people. Of course, you can get various types of processed food here if you want, but people just eat less of it. When I took my two friends from Europe to this
Yakitoi place in Shinjuku, they kept saying how amazing pretty much every single dish was. But the rating for this place on Japan's most popular restaurant rating website, Tablo, didn't even break 3.5 stars. Even for cheap, reasonably priced places, the standard for food quality here in Japan is so high that people are very picky. Despite over 800,000 restaurant listings, only 49 restaurants in the entire country have over 4.5 stars on Tabilog. But even though the food is really good wherever you go, people eat way less calories than Americans. The average American man eats 368 calories more than the average Japanese man. That's like eating an extra McDonald's egg cheeseburger or two onis every
single day. Stack that up over a month or a year and it adds up pretty quick. Of course, this is important because obesity links to all the health issues I mentioned earlier. So they eat less calories, so obviously they're thinner. The huge question is why do they eat less calories? Maybe it's because everybody is being constantly washed by Otani Shoi. Maybe it's because they're brutally fat shamed into starving themselves. So does Japan really hate and shame fat people? Like this AI narrated video that had 8 million views claimed, "If you are fat, people might hate you." Well, having lived here 15 years, I really don't think so.
Game. Now, it's not unusual for a friend to say something like, "Hey, did you gain some weight?" Yeah, a little bit. But it's really normal in Japan to say, "Oh, you got fat." Or like, "You got skinny." But it's not really shaming. It's just like an observation. Is it like a passive aggressive comment? I'd say it's neutral. Not like harsh thing. They care about me. Like they see I change. Yeah. Oh, you gain weight or you got to lose weight. That's so normal. And then no one's going to take offended. It's kind of like, oh, hey, you got a haircut.
Is it? Yeah. Exactly. Like, it's just an observation. Japanese people aren't mean. Like, from their perspective, they would never say anything to hurt your feelings. Now, sure, this is a bigger discussion, but at the end of the day, we're very social creatures. We're influenced by the people around us. I want to fit in. A 2007 study found that having an obese friend increases your chances of becoming obese yourself by 57%. The reverse is true, too. A 2012 study on high school students found that if you have lean friends, you're less
likely to gain weight yourself. If you visit Tokyo for very long at all, you'll immediately notice how walkable the city is. And this, of course, translates to naturally doing tons of walking, which is a daily reality for the people working here. Easily at any day, it was a 10,000 step day. Japanese walking. What is this? When you move out of cities like Tokyo with amazingly efficient public transportation, people of course start to walk less. But even with that in mind, looking at nationwide averages, the average Japanese person walks at least,300 more steps than Americans every single day. You might have seen videos online of people just pass out in the street after a night of drinking. Indeed, I do see this if I'm out early on the weekend.
While this isn't something to be celebrated and is definitely not good for health, it does suggest people aren't as worried as, say, Americans about crime. Safety isn't the first thing you'd think of when it comes to health. But stress can affect everything from mental health to heart health to even making you fatter and hungrier. And Japan is extremely safe. The stats suggest the risk of getting your phone, wallet, or bag stolen in Japan is 120th the risk in America. Hey, you dropped your wallet. Oh, thanks. This isn't uncommon. About 5 years ago, Jason Ray made a video where he dropped a wallet with money and a credit card in the streets of Tokyo 50 times, and someone quickly picked it up and
gave it back to him all 50 times. From New Jersey to Manhattan, cell phone thefts are happening all across the area. Snatched phones right out of hands as New Yorkers were walking by. Around 6:30 in the morning, there was this guy dressed in business casual and he was passed out like this and his phone was 5 ft in front of him. No one took it. Of course, my wife has lost stuff in the on the train before and you go and you make a phone call. They say, "We located your package. We located your phone." And it's there intact with everything in place. Just last year, Good Samaritans Tokyo handed over 147,000 lost smartphones and over 340,000 lost wallets into the police.
And this is just in Tokyo. Little police boxes like this are basically everywhere. They're around most the stations and scattered throughout residential areas. In Japan, it's like, "Oh, I go to the cob to check if they have my wallet." But in America, it's like, "All right, it's over. crime rate is totally lower here, like dramatically lower. So, you probably have way less stress. Yeah. I mean, I just went back to the States and my city's pretty dangerous. And I notice after like a day out, I'm just tired.
There is a modest link between violent crime and obesity levels, but you can't say that much about this since so much is going on here. However, some studies have found that crime links directly to obesity, even when you account for things like the fact that areas with high crime are generally poorer. Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. There's another small factor that probably reduces the stress of relationships here. People aren't really emotionally invested in politics here. They don't even talk about it too much, and they certainly don't fight about it. I've asked Japanese people that before.
It's like, "Do you ever get in political fights with your relatives and you never talk to them again?" They're like, "No, never." That's also why I like about Japan because, you know, Japanese people don't be too political, don't be too religious, and then like it's in the States now, you got to be careful lots of things. Yeah. Like political, right? Uh correct correctness. But just recently, people have gotten more into politics and online people are much more political.
Like, are Japanese people just less hungry? When people hear that Japan has smaller portion sizes, they'll think, "Of course, that's why people eat less calories." But why would that matter? Wouldn't they still be hungry and just order more food or grab more snacks at the Kami store after eating their tiny lunches? Well, there's a lot of psychology behind hunger and food portions. Research reveals people are kind of stupid and don't realize how much they eat. Researchers have tested all kinds of foods, even stale popcorn. They find that the bigger the portion size, people generally eat more of what's in front of them, regardless of how hungry they are. And weirdly enough,
bigger portions don't always make people more full. That's because our brains and stomachs don't recognize that we ate 223 calories. We go off visual cues like, "I ate one rice ball." It's not, "I ate 870 calories, but I ate a bowl of rice, an egg, a plate of beef, miso soup, and some pickles." That explains why I feel like I've eaten so much when I go to Kiteen Sushi. I didn't eat 840 calories of sushi. I ate seven whole plates of sushi. People tend to want to finish the unit of food they have, like a plate, a bowl, a package, a bar, or a can. You never know, you might be satisfied with these tiny cans of soda they have over here, but if you buy the normal one, you'll want to finish it. In one
experiment, they got people to eat more than twice as much soup as they thought just by secretly refilling the bowl. Without the visual cue, the people had no idea how much they really ate. It's not that Japan has small portion sizes. They're just about right for the average person. rather America has way too big portion sizes. The gut probiotics microbiome gut health benefits microbiome probiotic gut health. All right. Can I have another yogurt? A little bit over 10 years ago. Importance of gut health and fermented foods got a lot more mainstream attention in America. But various types of pickled vegetables and all kinds of fermented foods like miso or natto have
been a big part of Japanese food culture for over 1500 years. Any Japanese supermarket you walk into will have a decent selection of Japanese pickles, other fermented foods, and even various types of kimchi. Also, at the supermarket, and even at the convenience stores, they have a bunch of different types of probiotic yogurt drinks marketed for gut health. In fact, drinks like this have been around since the 1930s. You can even find the probiotic yogurt drinks in some of the vending machines. So, gut health may be another reason they stay so healthy.
Uh, I don't think it's hard to stay thin in Japan at all because I eat like traditional Japanese meal every day and as long as I follow that meal. I don't think I would ever get fat here. The other thing is it's hard to say what the traditional American meal is. Maybe for breakfast you'd say eggs and bacon with pancakes or toast, but for lunch and dinner it could be anything from mashed potatoes and meatloaf to burger with fries or barbecue to casserles or gumbo. So what is this? The traditional Japanese meal looks like this. So we have this word sai miso soup and rice and then three different dishes can be vegetables, fruit tang. I usually have this
morning, lunch, night every single day. So that's how I keep my body shape and weight. Pretty much wherever you go, you can get a version of this clean, simple meal format that's not covered in tons of gravy, sauce, or cheese and doesn't have a side of fries or onion rings. I think we know how to lose weight properly and without so much effort because Japanese food is already healthy. There's two simple things to point out here. As you probably guessed, Japanese people in general eat way more rice than bread. What do you eat more rice or bread?
I eat definitely rice, more rice. If you combine rice and wheat consumption, then Japan actually ate about 15% more per person than the USA in 2022. But when you break it down, Japanese people ate about seven times the rice and 1/2 the wheat of Americans. So, we could get into a long discussion about gluten or low levels of glyphosate and wheat, but rice is simply more filling than bread. If I eat bread, I don't know why, but I get really sleepy and I don't feel like I'm full. I want to keep eating. Would you say like most people feel that way? Cuz I've heard that from friends, too. Yeah, a lot of my friends also said that. So, I think that's accurate.
I drink mu almost every day for breakfast and dinner usually. Now, you might think that because Japan is so healthy, the average person must eat a low salt diet. Actually, no. Japanese people, in fact, eat even more salt than Americans. Americans get about 3,400 milligs of sodium per day, while Japanese people are closer to 4,40 milligs. I've done deep dives on the channel about why you don't need to be afraid of salt, but the thing here is it may help curb your appetite. We actually need salt and have a set of brain cells dedicated to making us crave salt. Most people don't realize that their craving for salty junky snacks like potato chips
or fries might just be a craving for salt, which could be solved by eating something salty but low calorie like miso soup. Even the convenience stores have a huge variety of instant soups that are low calorie but high sodium. The ichi in ichu sanzai means one soup. And interestingly enough, studies have found that drinking a savory soup before a meal reduces the total calories people eat, which is probably another reason why it's easy for them to eat less calories. Now, personally, I don't drink miso soup every single morning. What I do is have a glass of element. I found that it curbs my appetite and helps me avoid snacks I don't need, probably thanks to the sodium in it.
Most people don't realize how important sodium and electrolytes are for keeping your energy levels up in general. That's why drinking Element, the sponsor of this video, has become a daily habit for me. Because you lose so much sodium and electrolytes through sweat, I make sure to get extra when I'm sweating a bunch from the heat, from working out, or from going to the sauna. Element tastes great. And my favorite thing is its simple ingredients. It has a balanced mix of electrolytes, sodium, potassium, magnesium, along with some natural flavors and some stevia. A whole serving has only two total carbs. If you want zero carbs, there's also a raw and flavor type. If you go to drinklnt.com/w what I've learned, you can get a free
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