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Lack of exercise is a societal problem, consummating in the increased levels of obesity inAmerica,Europe, and most of the Western world. I've spent half of the last ten years traveling back and forth betweenEast Asiaand theUnited States, and I can't help but make comparisons between our two distinctly different ways of living.

While naturally there are countless differences in customs, religion, politics, and every facet of life, one of the differences that stands out the most is the national health standard.

Every time I go abroad to eitherJapanorChina, I'm simply shocked at just how thin everyone is. It's as if obesity hasn't been invented here... yet.

After several years of living inWestern Japanand making frequent trips to MainlandChina, I've had the pleasure of sitting down for dinner at the private households of many, many friendly acquaintances. Seated at the dinner table, I asked them one by one the secret to their waistlines. More often than not, they'd just make a puzzled face and reply something like, "Eating healthy and exercising frequently."

And of course that's the answer. Ever since nutritional is a science pioneered mainly by Western scientists and dietitians, it would seem that we've forgotten the simple truth that a well-balanced meal and regular exercise are the obvious "secrets" to health and longevity. Eating well-balanced meals is still common sense in the East.

As for working out, many people receive their daily exercise by simply riding a bicycle ten minutes to the train station on the way to work, and ten minutes on the way home. The majority of Americans would naturally opt for a two minute car ride, and probably feel embarrassed at the very thought of riding a bicycle out of the driveway to a train station. How many of us haven't even ridden a bicycle since junior high?

Before I began frequenting the Orient, I thought exaggerated gasoline prices were the major cause for all the bicycles. I also erroneously believed that low family incomes were the cause of low obesity levels. As these can be, undeniably, some of the factors involved in certain cases, I believe that national health consciousness is also heavily involved in the health gap between the East than the West.

As modern science and technology have flowed from the West to the East over the past 150 years, perhaps it would be in our best interest to re-learn a few health fundamentals from the Orient.