Here is a curious fact about the fit and fine ethnicity in Asia, the Japanese. It’s not the hours spending in gym, their secret to fitness lies elsewhere. Not like the Western countries that are riding the fitness craze like some kind of train they never want to miss. Developed nations like USA are gym is where all the actions are. In the USA, all educational institutes have gyms, and students are expected to break sweat spending a considerable time period in those. For general public, there are a number of gyms like Anytime Fitness, 24 Hour Fitness, or LA Fitness etc which have so many members. Celebrities share their fitness regime online, so that people following them may be inspired. There are some celebrities who have created CDs of their exercise which have been sold at high price. However, in Japan, the people are mostly not bothered about attending gym. While, the Japanese people are healthiest and their obesity ratio is only 4.3%, lowest in the world, the gym attendance rate is also very low. There has been a survey by Rakuten Insight within 1000 Japanese people of age between 20 to 60 years, in which about 50% informed that they either exercise once a month or not at all. Many people do not even have membership of a gym. They also said that they don’t have enough time for attending gym and also, they don’t consider rigorous exercise as an integral part of their life style. Then what is the secret of their health? In fact, Japanese people consider going to gym or running 10 Kilometers as exercise. However, most of the Japanese people are comfortable in walking for every small steps of their daily life. On an average, an adult Japanese person walks 6500 steps each day. While adult male between 20 to 50 years of age walks 8000 steps per day and women between 20 to 50 years of age walks 7000 steps per day. The people of Okinawa are well known for their walking culture. Nagano, a rural region of Japan had a high rate of stroke, which they have reduced by introducing more than 100 walking routes. In most of the Japanese cities, public transport is safe and roads are walkable. People go about their daily routine walking, like going to office, school or shopping. Even when people go to dinner, they walk. Most of the Japanese people do not feel that cars are essential part of their life. The Japanese have taught us, the people of rest of the world, an important lesson. To be fit and healthy, we don’t need a rigorous exercise, only walking some extra miles.
