The rate of obesity among adults in America is on an average around 30%. Living healthy has become a hectic thing in today's fast life. To make life easy, we gulp down fast food without considering what it is doing to our body. On the other side, finding an obese Japanese is almost next to impossible. Their obesity rate is 3.5%. Isn't that shocking? Where are the french fries?

How do they stay so lean? Let's find out

Although there could be several reasons, we will mainly focus on the food environment in Japan. Yes, they do drink a lot of green tea and eat fermented food like Kimchi and Natto.

But the primary reason is something else.

Let's take a look at the fast food establishment

As of 2017, there are over 243k establishments in America and In Japan, the number of fast food organizations is under 7k. It means for each person there are 15 times more fast food outlets in America. Now that is an achievement. Thanks to fast food, fry food, candy, pop, and chocolate. It doesn't mean all these are not available in Japan. But the trick is Japan still serves a variety of healthy, but convenient food.

Let's understand this with an example

You're working in an office in NYC, but you're too busy to cook your food. Obviously, you'll buy breakfast from outside. Most likely, you'll buy pancakes, doughnuts or burger.

Sure, some of you will opt for better food, but I'm talking here what most of the people have easy access to in America.

What will a busy person in Japan eat?

There are more than 5k rice bowl establishments in Japan like Yoshinoya, Sukiya, etc. where you can have plain rice, miso soup, egg, baked fish and potato salad. You can add extra dishes as well if you're feeling more hungry.

Even Japanese convenience store offers healthy and delicious rice bowl, salad, fish or soup. The less junk you eat, the more healthy you are. And that too under the price of less than $10. And what you drink between the meals that matter a lot.

Americans are drinking soda while Japanese prefer to drink tea. It makes a huge difference. There's a lot more available in the American convenience store that I don't need to mention. But Doritos and food loaded with trans-fat & preservative are my favorite. Sometimes I do eat a packet of nuts to give my body proper nutrition. Isn't that great? I'm feeling like Hulk now.

In the end, it is all about access and cheap, convenient and good food for an average person. It's time to eat Japanese food. What do you think?
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED