What Is This World Coming To?

by Frank Spaniak

“And while you are there, could you tighten it up around the chest and neck too?”

In typical nanny-state fashion Japanese companies are being urged to get all their employees to trim down to meet government guidelines or face possible heavy fines for not being in shape, CNN reports here.

Does this apply to foreign workers? For example, if I were to go work in Japan for a year or two now that I’m above 40, would my employer be fined if I didn’t shrink my (censored) waist size to a 33.5? I’m trying to figure out how the fine works, is it by the waist inch?

Maybe I can convince the company to me buy skinny credits from anorexic people that have a few inches to spare. “Go ahead put some mayo on that grease burger; I traded with Bob and have it covered” .

No matter though, I can’t see this catching on in the US anytime soon. The corporate pressure to redefine what is trim by the fast-food chains and cruise lines to name two, would be huge.

It’s fun to muse how far will it go and what other measurements could be taken. Will minimum bust or peck size be mandated? I can see it now, a stampede of people lining up now to work for the government in the Department of Defining Obese Persons Empirically (DOPE) to help in the measuring process, serving Old Glory, wow.

On the other side of this, can the employer afford not to keep the employees fit? It could turn out to be cheaper for the employer to pay for a tummy tuck on a few select employees rather than pay huge fines to the government and become a secondary insurer of sorts. At least they could get their PPO to do the work cheaper.

If my boss lets me go because of my waist is that called waste discrimination? Will a violation of the mandated measurements ultimately make me an illegal citizen living in my own country or worse un-employable? Since I’m not working at that point, I’ll have to live on the heavy fat laden food that I can afford, I’ll wait till I go the hospital to die expensively like everyone else.

(They’d probably put me down.)

Finally the children, will they be denied education or graduation because they cant meet the national standards? I smell parental obesity fines as a good revenue stream for the government here. This scares the heck out of me — and my waistline.

I feel so managed — and confused.