3. TIL that Japan requires citizens between the ages of 45 and 74 to have their wai...

TIL that Japan requires citizens between the ages of 45 and 74 to have their waistlines measured once a year and are expected to fall within an established range. Companies and local governments may face fines if their employees are overweight and do not meet these guidelines.

Right, but the problem is that people - insurance companies and doctors all the same - use it on an individual level. Last I went to my gyno she took my height and weight and made a point to tell me my BMI. It was well within the healthy range - 21 - but it still pissed me off that a medical professional with decades of experience would misuses a public health metric. If she'd used calipers to determine my individual body fat (even though calipers are not a reliable method), I'd have been less perturbed, because at least body fat percentage is an individual metric.

As for the OP and waist inches - this isn't the first time I've heard about this "policy" by the health ministry, and the US military, or at least some branches, do something similar (rope and choke, comparing neck to waist). But I've been told it can be off for stocky builds and for lanky builds.

At my heaviest my waist was 31", I weighed almost 160 lbs. but I still fit into US size 6 and 8 clothes. Nobody would have called me fat except myself. In fact nobody ever did call me fat, but they did notice when I lost 25 pounds.

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