ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the origin of metabolic syndrome and its connections to obesity and overweight and the different programmes that have been implemented to improve the situation. The Japanese government has shifted the target of screening to metabolic syndrome for the prevention and control of diabetes mellitus and the prevention of coronary heart disease and chronic kidney disease. Metabolic syndrome or ‘metabo’ has become an element of everyday conversations and a term widely used in ‘television shows featuring health issues’. Policies against metabolic syndrome chiefly entail an ethnicised response to obesity and overweight. The chapter draws on the construct of biopedagogy to offer a theoretical view on strategies against obesity and overweight. The concept of biopedagogy—’a pedagogy of bios’ which involves instruction on how to live—was instrumental in disentangling how interventions to tackle metabolic syndrome have been implemented. The chapter highlights why the outcomes of official interventions tend to be uncertain and imperceptible.
