Japanese Gain Weight, Lifespan Worries

Changing Diets Could Threaten Japan's Guinness-Worthy Longevity

(CBS/AP)  The Japanese are getting fatter.

Nutritionists blame a shift away from traditional staples like sushi and soybean paste food to fast food and highly-processed snacks, reports CBS News' Lucy Craft (audio).

Rising rates of lifestyle-related illness like diabetes threaten Japan's Guinness-worthy lifespans — 86 years for women and 79 for men.

Consider 10-year-old Sayaka Oyama's former diet: spaghetti and meat sauce for lunch, chocolates and cookies for a snack, rice balls for dinner and sandwiches at nighttime classes. Late at night, she would slurp down some quick noodles before going to bed.

The diet had a predictable outcome — one that doctors are seeing more in Japan as the country leaves behind traditional food habits. At 9 years old, Sayaka stood 4 feet 2 inches and weighed 108 pounds, about 50 pounds over her ideal weight.

"I just love eating noodles. I get home tired from cram school, so I used to eat it all the time at night," explained the girl, who, like many Japanese children, takes evening classes to prepare for junior high entrance exams.

Sayaka is now trying to slim down in a sports program for overweight kids. She reflects a rise in obesity in Japan that is being blamed for diabetes and other health problems. Some fear the trend could one day jeopardize Japan's status as the home of the world's longest-living population.

"I don't know for how long Japan can maintain the world's highest longevity," says Yukio Yamori, director of the International Center for Research on Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases. "If eating habits change, life expectancy will shorten and this has already been made clear."

Still, Japan's fat problem pales besides that of the U.S., reports Craft: While about one-third of Americans are obese, the rate for Japan is just 3 percent. Only 24 percent of Japanese aged 15 and older are believed to be overweight, compared to about 65 percent of adults in the United States.

But concern is growing over eating patterns like Sayaka's. Instead of the fish, rice and miso soup of their grandparents' generation, younger Japanese are increasingly wolfing down fast food like burgers, fried chicken and instant noodles.

Bad diets and less exercise create what psychologists say is a vicious cycle: Fat kids are increasingly picked on at school, get depressed and find solace in eating even more.

"Children these days shoulder a lot of concerns and stresses," says Yuriko Ota, a nutritionist who runs the program that Sayaka enrolled in last year. "I feel there are more obese kids that are gloomy and dark. It wasn't like this before."

Men in all age groups have grown heavier in the past two decades in Japan. The highest rate of obesity is among men in their 40s: 34 percent in 2003, up from 23 percent in 1980, according to the National Health and Nutrition Survey. While older women are also growing fatter, younger fashion-conscious women tend to be underweight.

Among children, 8 percent were obese or at risk of obesity in 2004, compared with fewer than 6 percent in 1980. In the United States, experts believe about 30 percent of kids are overweight.