It's a nation where just 4pc are very overweight thanks to compulsory weigh-ins at work - and apps that shout insults at fat people... How a trip to Japan shocked this group of obese Brits into losing weight

A bustling market in Tokyo and locals are minding their own business, browsing stalls or rushing to work — until a group of obese Brits stroll past and stop them in their tracks. Suddenly, heads start to turn, and the visitors are struck by the sense they’re being gossiped about.

‘All the school kids — they pointed and laughed at us,’ says an aghast Tiffany, 24. ‘They are so open about being rude.’

Marisa, 32, is equally shocked. ‘I don’t feel like I should be here,’ she says. ‘It blows my mind that you’re not allowed to be who you are, and you just have to fit in.’

In Britain, where more than 25 per cent of adults are obese — or have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above — the group would barely raise an eyebrow. Here in Japan, however, where the obesity rate is just four per cent, they are an anomaly; figures of shame in a society where fat is scorned. And that is precisely why they have come to the country, as part of Channel 4 documentary series Around The World In 80 Weighs.

A group of six Brits, including (from left) Therri-Jay, Russell and Marisa, are travelling the globe to learn what other countries are doing to tackle obesity

Japanese YouTubers Mr and Mrs Eats chaperone the group around Tokyo as part of Channel 4 documentary series Around The World In 80 Weighs

The group of six, whose combined weight is 855 kg, or 134 st, travel the globe to learn what other countries are doing to tackle obesity. They include Russell, 36, a healthcare insurer from Kent — who developed diabetes after his weight topped 30 st — and his wife Marisa, 31, an administrator, who started comfort eating at school after being bullied. ‘If anything bad happened, I would turn to food,’ she says.

Tiffany, an NHS waste co-ordinator, believed she was ‘this disgusting human being’ after being called fat daily as a child, and Therri-Jay, 32, a community officer from London, turned to food to cope after her best friend was murdered when she was just 14.

Then there’s 34-year-old Phil, a behaviour welfare coach from Leeds, who wants to lose weight to be a better father to his four-year-old son; while housewife Susan, 57, from Northamptonshire, blames her weight on grappling with boredom and loss.

In Japan, where the obesity rate is just four per cent, the group stands out from the crowd

‘I’m a bit in limbo,’ she says. ‘The children don’t need me. Cooking is a hobby but that turns into eating.’

While all members of the group — who have an average waist circumference of 54 in — have psychological triggers that fuel their overeating, our British culture of buy-one-get-one free junk-food deals, takeaways and whipped cream lattes also encourages them at every turn.

‘Society is a lot to blame for me being overweight,’ claims Therri-Jay, who laments the chicken and Chinese fast-food joints she sees ‘everywhere’, adding: ‘It makes you really think — does my country even care about me?’

The group arrived with a combined weight of 855 kg, but left Japan 17kg lighter after just five days

So what is different in Japan, where they live and eat like locals for five days? And could this nation’s attitude towards food help foster healthier eating habits in the UK?

Of course, the national diet — known as washoku — is a world apart from our cuisine of sugary cereals, endless snacks and stodgy ready meals. Largely fresh and unprocessed, it centres on rice, fermented vegetables, soya and fish. Because Japan is a group of islands, its residents eat more fish than other Asian countries: 80g to 100g every day.

That’s quite something compared with the two-thirds of Brits who don’t even eat the recommended two portions of fish a week.

‘Vegetables that have been fermented, either by pickling with vinegar or with salt, have been broken down by bacteria and are increasingly shown to support gut health,’ says Laura Southern, nutritionist at London Food Therapy.

‘As fish is a primary source of protein for the Japanese, and they don’t eat the same quantities of red meat as the West, their diet is lower in saturated fat, which can lead to high blood pressure and heart disease.’

Soy — usually in the form of tofu, edamame or natto, which is traditionally eaten for breakfast — also provides protein, while the Japanese eschew sugary lattes for green tea, which Southern says is packed with ‘stress-reducing plant compounds and high levels of antioxidants linked to improved brain health’.

Seaweed is another staple — it contains alginate, which stops the body absorbing fat — while meals end with fruit, and puddings are a rare treat. Little wonder, then, that Japanese people consume on average 300 fewer calories a day than Brits, and 48.8g sugar per day compared with our 100.4g, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Russell is a healthcare insurer from Kent who developed diabetes after his weight topped 30 st

The presentation of food is just as important as the content.

Japanese YouTubers Mr and Mrs Eats (they never reveal their real names), who chaperone the Brits around Tokyo in the show, explain that rather than using one large plate, the Japanese eat from a small bowl, rotating different dishes.

The slender Mrs Eats says: ‘We eat little by little so you don’t over eat.’

Russell, who wants to lose weight with Marisa so they’re healthy enough to have children, is partial to bread, egg fried rice and prawn crackers. He decides the strategy ‘makes sense, because sometimes I leave the best bit till right at the end and that makes you finish everything on the plate even if you’re stuffed’.

Bingeing is also more difficult if you’re using chopsticks. The Brits describe them as ‘torture’ to eat with, but research from Ohio State University has found they make eating more enjoyable.

British model Lisa Snowdon has attributed her phenomenal figure to them, saying: ‘If I’m hungry and use a fork, I shovel food in. With chopsticks, it takes longer and tricks me into eating less.’

Bingeing is difficult if you’re using chopsticks – and the Britons describe them as ‘torture’

Then there’s the Japanese saying, hara hachi bu, which means ‘to eat till you are 80 per cent full’, that children are taught from a young age.

But diet alone doesn’t explain why Japan had the longest average life expectancy among G7 countries in 2020. The island of Okinawa is home to the highest number of centenarians in the world. Unlike our MPs who dither over banning fatty BOGOF products, Japan’s politicians consider it their duty to control the nation’s health.

In 2008, after Western fast food had begun to overtake traditional Japanese fare in popularity, and the country’s men were found to be 10 per cent and women 6 per cent heavier than a decade earlier, the authorities took the extraordinary step of making it mandatory for companies to carry out annual health checks on staff, with weight monitored.

Men with a waist circumference of over 33in and women whose waists measured over 35in were given exercise and diet plans — and firms that failed to bring their staff’s weight under control faced fines.

‘If it can prevent even a small number of people from developing cardiovascular diseases, it will be good news for them and their families,’ said director of the Japan Society for the Study of Obesity, Yuji Matsuzawa, at the time.

All of which ‘might sound weird to you guys,’ says Mrs Eats, as she takes the group to fragrance company Kao to watch a health check in action, and marvel at the healthy canteen lunch menu, created by company dieticians, that costs staff just £2.

But Therri-Jay is too unsettled to eat, describing how feeling like a ‘second-class citizen’ at home makes her reach for burgers, chocolate and popcorn. ‘We’ve not been told how to cope,’ she cries.

Yet whether staff here are happy about the draconian measures enforced on them is another matter — in 2023 Japan ranked last among 18 countries surveyed for workplace wellbeing, with only 49 per cent describing themselves as happy in their jobs.

Tiffany, for her part, doesn’t see her obesity as a problem, having worked hard to overcome the trauma of being sent to a personal trainer aged 11 by her own mother; and of being bullied at school for her weight. She now weightlifts, cheerleads and firmly believes ‘you can be healthy when you’re obese. I’m not sure if I grew up in this environment I would be the same person’.

Certainly, she would be uncomfortable with the fat-shaming that is de rigueur in Japan. ‘It’s super normal for [people] to just grab you and say: “What’s going on here, buddy, you’ve picked up a few pounds,” ’ explains Mr Eats, who introduces the visitors to an employee who failed his health test and was ordered to walk 10,000 steps a day until he was slim again.

Walking is a national pastime in Japan, with the average Japanese person taking 6,500 steps a day, partly because driving is expensive — 69 per cent of households have access to a car there, compared with 77 per cent in the UK.

Japan has another weapon in its fitness armoury in the form of dai-ichi —an exercise routine that takes just three minutes, requires no equipment, and is broadcast to a backdrop of piano music several times a day on a Japanese public radio station.

Followed by everyone from children to the elderly, it comprises 13 simple moves, including arm raises and star jumps.

Therri-Jay performs the routine in Kao’s offices, mortified at showing everyone her ‘underneath’ while touching her toes.

Yet she concludes: ‘If we had to do that every morning at work I think we’d be more productive, more happy and I feel like we’d enjoy movement more.’ There are other, darker, aspects to Japan’s attitude towards the overweight. They include exercise apps such as Nenshou, launched in 2013, in which an on-screen animated character dishes out digital humiliation in the form of statements such as: ‘Fat girl, do some more exercise, OK?’ Russell and Phil, greeted by a ‘good morning, tubby!’ by the avatar on the app they are shown, appear appalled.

‘That wouldn’t go down well in the UK,’ says Phil. ‘It’s blown my mind that that’s allowed.’

Japan is made up of a group of islands, so its residents eat more fish than other Asian countries: 80g to 100g every day

More dubious still is an emerging market for renting obese people, for around £11 an hour, by companies such as Debucari, which launched in 2021.

Stressing that it is not an escort service, Debucari states its goal is to promote ‘progression away from an era where being fat had a negative image’ — yet it also suggests the obese can be hired to help clients look slimmer.

In the Channel 4 documentary, one such ‘body’ for hire, recalls how she had been told to lose weight in her previous job in a café because ‘in these places you must be thin’.

Tiffany is, not unreasonably, unconvinced by the practice: ‘I don’t quite believe there is zero fetishness about it.’

On their final day the group visit a community bath house, where locals believe submersing themselves in 42c water raises their metabolism and promotes weight loss (although there is little evidence to back up their claims, and the baths apparently cause cardiac problems and are reported to be responsible for 10 per cent of all sudden deaths in Japan).

So nonchalant are most Japanese about their bodies that there are no private changing rooms at the baths, a deal-breaker no doubt for many prudish Brits.

Horrified at the prospect of changing publicly, Phil opts out — but Russell, despite ruing the belly he describes as an ‘apron’, takes the plunge: ‘I’m here to shock myself and create a new mindset.’

He describes his immersion into Japanese lifestyle as ‘pretty emotive’, while wife Marisa calls it ‘an eye-opener’. She admits: ‘In 15 years we might not be here if we don’t change.’

Before they leave the group get on the scales — and discover they’ve lost 17kg in total in just five days. They’re delighted.

‘We’re so lucky to come to Japan,’ says Susan. ‘They’re so disciplined as a country. We all agreed we’ll take the discipline with us.’

Of course, no amount of chopsticks, workouts on national radio or domineering bosses can alleviate emotional angst, and sniggering at obese people in public is not the answer.

But perhaps incorporating a few of Japan’s strategies for weight control into our national psyche might finally stop the habit too many of us have, of reaching for the biscuit jar every time we need a pick-me-up.

Around The World In 80 Weighs is next on Channel 4 on Tuesday.