If you been to Japan, access to unhealthy food is extraordinarily easy. There’s so much bad food everywhere along with good food.

So in short food itself from Japan is not generically healthy… it’s the choices that Japanese people make within this environment that are healthy.

As a Japanese, I will also mention that what you see out to eat in Japan is not exactly what we eat at home traditionally. I doubt many would know about all the multitude of traditional dishes that my mom regularly made at home that one would typically not go out to eat, such as hijiki salad (ひじきの煮物) or kinpira gobo (きんぴらごぼう). These and others are the types of dishes that remind me of home (and not tamago-sandos and ramen). My mom emphasized eating things of different colors, which came in the form of assortments of various types of vegetables.

Also, portion sizes in America are huge.

>it’s the choices that Japanese people make within this environment that are healthy.

Precisely that they don't need to make choices due to their environment is what makes the difference. In the US and EU people love their individualism, spend a gazillion on fitness interventions and most people are overweight, it's probably the most visible sign of the importance of culture. As Russ Ackoff said, the correct way to address problems is not to solve them, but to dissolve them. Not to fix individual issues but to create conditions under which they do not occur.

The best way to lose weight is actually to move to a place that's full of thin people, not "do" anything. It's funny that the reverse is common wisdom, everyone who moves to an unhealthy place will always proclaim how they gained 20 pounds immediately

> it’s the choices that Japanese people make within this environment that are healthy

This is a difficult truth for a lot of people to accept because it’s so much easier to blame invisible factors that are poorly understood: Microplastics, xenoesteogens, microbiome, trace lithium in the water supply, or the other trendy excuses.

In some cultures moderating your eating and controlling your weight comes with very high societal pressure. Everyone sees this from a young age and internalizes it. It’s hard to communicate how strong this pressure is and it gets lost when you only look at studies about the food supply.

I think this is mostly a social/societal thing - at an early age in schools they tell kids that they should only eat until they're 80% full. And there's substantial social pressure and bullying of anyone considered even mildly overweight.

Also, most people have a lot of walking/biking built into their daily schedule, especially in larger cities where having a car is impractical.

This all means that while there is a huge amount of sweets and fatty food, it's usually eaten in moderation, and people get exercise in their daily lives to work it off.

North America is a car captured hellscape where so many people have zero options but to sit in a car to get everywhere they want to go.

Meanwhile in Japan and so many other regions in Europe that are pointed to as healthier people have the option to simply walk to do so many of their daily tasks.

No real surprise that the regions where people have to actively work harder to be active are in poorer health than others where being active is the default easiest choice.

The built environment is a critical thing here we can fix to make a healthier society.

The Mediterranean diet is pretty much nothing like people in the Mediterranean eat today either. Very old people had a radically different diet during most of their life.

>If you been to Japan, access to unhealthy food is extraordinarily easy.

But so is healthy food. Imagine saying "I ate nothing but 7/11 food for two days and I feel the best I have in years" in America.

Where I'd be having a hot dog or pizza I was having onigiri. Small things like that add up.

And yes, they do walk a lot -- I spent a whole evening just walking around Shinjuku in awe of the place.

They have vending machines with hot pizza! I’d be in big trouble there.

What a horrible post, missing the entire point by a mile and worse yet, misguiding everyone about the most basic facts :(

I assume you're from a western society, so I can't possibly imagine how you could have possibly reached such a conclusion. The contrast should be obvious at first glance.

The default Japanese diet is greatly more healthy than the default western diet, especially the American diet.

As a person living in the west and willing to put in some of my limited effort into eating healthy, I'm screwed. There's barely any healthy options available, I'm flooded by an ocean of awful food and it takes significant effort and cost not to drown in it.

I can't emphasize this enough, it absolutely does not matter what you can technically do or not. Defaults are what matters. By default in Japan you eat a reasonably healthy diet and walk/bike regularly. By default in America you eat fast food and drive everywhere.

Isn't it just affordable access to high quality healthcare services?