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How Japan's '80%' philosophy of eating may help us all be healthier

It's not about losing weight, though that may be a byproduct.

Photo credit: Canva

Japanese food tends to be healthy, but there's more to healthy eating than the food itself.

Many Americans were told to "clean your plate" growing up, meaning to eat everything you were served at mealtime. To leave food on your plate was considered rude, ungrateful or otherwise undesirable behavior, and the habit of eating everything in front of you became ingrained.

Kids raised in Japan may have been brought up with an entirely different philosophy, one that tells them to stop eating before they are full. It's called hara hachi bu (or sometimes hara hachi bun me).

Stop eating when you're 80% full

Hara hachi bu literally translates to "belly 80% full" and on it's face that's literally what it means—stop eating when your stomach feels 80% full. Asako Miyashita, RDN, a New York-based dietitian who grew up in Japan, told Women's Health that the phrase comes from a 300-year-old book by Japanese philosopher and botanist Ekiken Kaibara, "Yojokun: Life Lessons From A Samurai." The book is about listening to your body, and its author lived to 83, which was a remarkably long life at a time when the life expectancy in Japan was 50.

Fast forward to today, and the people of Okinawa, Japan, where hara hachi bu is a popular phrase, have some of the longest life expectancies on Earth. But can eating only until you're 80% full actually help you live longer?

It's possible. One reason may be calorie restriction. According to longevity researcher Dan Buettner, Okinawans eat about 1,900 calories per day on average. Compare that to Americans who eat over 3,500 calories per day on average. Caloric restriction has been shown to increase the lifespan of multiple animal species and has also been shown to slow the aging process in healthy human adults, so simply not pushing our caloric intake by filling our bellies all the way full may be something to consider if we're looking to live a long life.

Hara hachi bu encouraged mindful eating

Another benefit of the 80% full idea is that it forces you to be mindful about how your body's feeling while you're eating, which may contribute to better physical health. According to Harvard University, mindless or distracted eating—the opposite of mindful eating—is associated with anxiety, overeating, and weight gain.

"Hara hachi bu is not a diet, but a lifestyle that can help promote a sustainable approach to eating," dietician Kouka Webb, RN, told Women's Health. "It encourages mindful eating and portion control without the need for strict calorie counting or eliminating certain food groups."

family eating dinner in JapanA family eats dinner in Japan.Photo credit: Canva

Harvard shares that a literature review of 68 intervention and observational studies found that mindfulness and mindful eating slowed down the pace of people's eating and improved people's recognition of when they were full. Mindful eating also reduced binge eating and emotional eating.

Overeating can lead to weight gain, of course, but it can also disrupt your hunger regulation, increase your risk for certain types of disease, cause stomach issues like nausea, gas and bloating, and can even impair your brain function. If you stop eating when you're 80% full means you're far less likely to overeat.

But does that mean you're always left 20% hungry? Not necessarily. According to the Cleveland Clinic, it takes up to 30 minutes for your brain to actually process that your stomach is full, so if you stop when you feel 80% full, you'll most likely feel 100% full just a short while later.

Eat until you're not hungry, not until you're full

“There’s a huge gap between being physically satisfied and realizing in your mind that you’re full,” psychologist Susan Albers, PsyD. tells the Cleveland Clinic. “The connection between them is more like old-school dialup speed than instantaneous WiFi.”

Eating to 80% full is probably closer to the "eat until you're no longer hungry" advice that she gives her patients to feel satiated without actually feeling "full."

“When we think about the word ‘full,’ it’s often like filling up a cup or occupying every inch of a space,” Dr. Albers says. “But the fullness that we can feel and perceive in our stomachs is often being overly full. ‘Satiated’ is different, though. Satiated is meeting a need.”

As Buettner writes, "There is a significant calorie gap between when an American says, ‘I’m full’ and an Okinawan says, ‘I’m no longer hungry.’"

Of course, the traditional Japanese diet also tends to be quite healthy in terms of what they eat, but mindful eating, paying attention to how your stomach feels and stopping before getting full, is worth applying no matter what cuisine you're eating. Next time you sit down for a meal, give hara hachi bu a try and see how you feel. It definitely can't hurt.

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Pop Culture

American mom living in Japan shows her son's adorable required school supplies

Okay, these are so freakin' cute.

Photo credit: Canva

We all need those adorable hats and loafers.

July is almost over, which means that a return to school is just around the corner. That also means that back-to-school shopping has begun.

But what might that look like in other parts of the world? Thanks to the internet, we need not wonder.

Moriah is an American mom who began living in Okinawa, Japan, in January 2024 after her husband got stationed there. She regularly posts videos showing just how different daily life is in her new home, not least of which being her son’s school.

In a now viral TikTok clip, Moriah shared her son’s latest school supply haul. And let’s just say…it looks a little different than what we normally see in the U.S.

Moriah began her clip by saying that everything cost 65,000 yen, which roughly amounts to $420. That’s a pretty hefty price for just one kid, but wait til you hear what was purchased.

For the first item, prepare to be overwhelmed by cute kid fashion. Moriah showed off an adorable black and white “summer hat,” to match his summer uniform. In winter, he’ll have a different uniform, and a different matching hat. Plus an outside hat…Japan has their hat game down pat.

But wait, there’s more! Moriah’s son also gets a name tag that looks like it was plucked right out of a wholesome anime, which will be pinned onto his uniform each day, in addition to two gym shirts with his name in Japanese sewed onto the front, three pairs of gym shorts, two sets of the blue short overalls, two of the button-up shirts, an art smock and last but not least…a bow tie.

“They wear this during formal events,” Moriah explained.

Of course, the boy needs matching shoes for all these outfits, which are also part of the supply haul. Then his school outfit will be complete with an “itty-bitty” backpack.

And now, we get to the actual supplies.


@momentswithmoriah Japanese school supplies 🤩 #okinawa #okinawajapan #japanese #japaneseculture #shoppinghaul ♬ sonido original - SONIDOS LARGOS


First up: a pianika, which is a small, portable breath-powered keyboard that’s standard for most Japanese elementary schools.

“All of the kids get these and learn how to play them and then they'll have a school event where we get to watch and see what they've learned,” Moriah explains before playing a couple of notes.

Then there’s the drawing pad, a jump rope, art supplies like scissors, glue pastels, markers and clay, all of which fit into a nifty supply box that’s top also acts as a mold for the clay that they use. There’s even a pouch that holds onto all “communications for the parents.”

Because organization is clearly a priority, Moriah says that she has to label each and all of these supplies. But she luckily has her kid’s name in Japanese on a stamp to make that task a little easier.

And that’s it! At least, for brand-specific school supplies. Moriah said her family would later go out to stores to get things like her son’s lunch mat and water bottle, which could allow for a little more personal flair.

The mom then shared that when she first attempted this three months ago, it felt really “daunting.” But now with a bit more experience under her belt, she’s “actually excited to get everything organized and ready for the start of the school year in September.”

Though Moriah and her family might only be in Japan for 3-6 years (according to her follow-up video), she’ll certainly have racked up quite a few memories while there, in addition to fun videos for us! It’s always cool to see how different cultures navigate life. Granted, even within Japan, different schools are bound to operate differently, but still, this is a prime example of how the internet is a great way to celebrate and explore differences.

To follow along on more of Moriah’s Japan journey, follow her on TikTok and Instagram.

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Family

Woman explains why having quadruplets resulted in a $4 million hospital bill

Here's how she paid the bill.

via Mikhail Nilov/Pexels

A man and woman looking over their bills. Representative image.

The United States is the second most expensive country in the world to give birth, after Japan. In Japan, it costs around $61,000 to have a vaginal delivery, although those costs can be offset by government health insurance.

In the U.S., it costs around $14,000 to have a child without insurance, although there are a lot of factors that affect the price, including where you give birth, the type of insurance you carry and if there are any complications.

While $14,000 is a lot of money for most people, Hanna Castle from the Columbus, Ohio, area received a $4 million hospital bill after having quadruplets and that didn’t even include the delivery. All 4 of the children needed to spend time in the NICU for lengths between 64 and 147 days.


Castle explained the costs in a video that has been seen nearly 8 million times.

That hurt 🤣 

@hannacastle

That hurt 🤣 #Quadruplets #nicu #america #healthcare

The 4 children, Atlas, Dominic, Magnolia and Morgan, were all born at 28 weeks via Cesarean section and were treated at separate NICUs. According to Investopedia, a stay in the NICU can cost anywhere from $3,000 to $20,000 a day in the United States.

The smallest child of the 4, Atlas, weighed just 1.5 pounds but had the shortest stay in the NICU of 64 days. His total bill came to $714,747.15. Next was Magnolia who stayed 74 days at a cost of $728,625.56. Morgan stayed 86 days for $976,415.69 and Dominic stayed the longest, 147 days, for $1,626139.55.

All in all, the total bill for the NICU for the Castle Quads was $4,045,927.95.

Commenters on the video couldn’t believe how anyone could pay such a massive bill. "To put this in perspective, it would take $500 a month for 675 years to pay this off," Gouda wrote.

The good news for the Castle family was that Medicaid of Ohio picked up the entire tab. Knowing that the babies would need extensive care after being born, the couple quit their jobs to qualify for financial assistance. "At 16 weeks pregnant, I decided to quit my job to get some of that assistance because there was no other way," Castle told Good Morning America.

"I moved my mom in with us to kind of help financially for the first year and see how the kids were going to be,” she added. In Ohio, adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level and children with a household income of 211% of the poverty level can qualify for Medicaid.

In a recent Facebook post, Castle discussed the tough challenges of being the parent of multiples in America.

“You can believe that you’ll have 1 full-term child, but every pregnancy is different. A lot of us do not believe in terminating healthy children because of finances. Things happen. No one wants to live off of government assistance just to be able to survive and frankly there’s a lot of shame behind it,” she wrote. “But other countries don’t even have to worry about that. Do they truly think that a 1-time tax credit per year is enough to get us to keep having children in this economy? With the type of medical bills we rack up here? With the lack of financial medical assistance we have here?”


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Popular

American mom reveals the next-level amenities she enjoyed at a Japanese birth clinic

The biggest surprise is how inexpensive it is.

Representative image from Canva

A birth clinic with facials? Now that's luxury.

When I say “picture a birthing clinic,” you’re likely to imagine all white rooms and hospital beds…not luxury suites and spa vibes.

But the latter was what Nicole Patrice, who had moved to Japan from Kentucky and underwent a c-section at the Nagoya Birth Clinic, where her husband purchased a 5-day stay in the “precious suite” as a Christmas gift.

Her tour of the facility and all its next level amenities—not to mention its price—left viewers in shock.

Though Patrice was separated from her baby for 24 hours as she received phototherapy treatment for jaundice, the clinic provided in-person snuggle time when able, even bringing him up to her suite for morning visits.

The rest of the time, Patrice was free to focus on her own healing, and it was as though every aspect of the clinic was specifically designed to facilitate that. From the restaurant worthy meals (all of which are apparently “made to promote healing, excite the palate and encourage lactation” to the cozy reading nooks, to the on-site aesthetic clinic for rejuvenating facials. Yes, really.

But wait, there’s more: Nagoya also provided adorable props for family photos, an in-room hot water heater for tea and coffee, plus in-room breakfast and afternoon tea.

“They really care about mothers here, and they just want us to rest and relax and really enjoy our time,” Patrice said in the video.

For a five day stay with all these bells and whistles, Patrice paid less than $3000 USD. By comparison, you’d be lucky to pay that for a single stay in something similar here in the United States.

@nicole_does_japan Day two after having a C-section in Japan. Pain management has been surprisingly easy. I came off of my IVs the day after my surgery- and I fully believe that not relying on pain medication has allowed my body to heal and create a threshold of tolerability, that I did not experience with my first C-section. In Japan, they don’t give a lot of unnecessary medication in regards to narcotics. I think the strongest thing that I had was Tylenol. the food, and the peaceful atmosphere all attribute to my healing. It’s been a dream giving birth at the Nagoya birth clinic. ##birthinjapan##japanpregnant##nagoyabirthclinic##nagoya##japanesefood##hospitalfoodreview##LifeInJapan##Csection##dayinmylife ♬ Lofi/Fashionable/Rose Piano/10 minutes(1455693) - nightbird_bgm

Needless to say, people were impressed.

“I wouldn't want to leave. Good food, baby nursery, facials to which Patrcis replied “Smae .It felt like ‘mommy camp.’”

“5 star maternity hotel is what it is.”

“I just love how progressive, considerate and healing the Japanese view and approach the birthing and recovery period.”

The underlying reason why Japanese and American approaches to childbirth differ so greatly could be due to fundamental cultural views. An article in PubMed states that while “autonomy is cherished in America,” Japan still adheres to more traditional gender roles, and maintains a “women-centered” approach to birth practices. Male partners often do not even help in labor. Additionally, Japan prioritizes natural births, believing it strengthens the bond between child and mother.

This system is, of course, not without its flaws due to those social norms, but in an ideal scenario, we would be able to blend both Western and Eastern modalities to create a birthing experience that truly caters to the needs of new mothers and prioritizes their healing journey.

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