The Rise of an Appearance-Oriented Society: How Weight Loss Can Reshape Personal Competitiveness

So, what changes are taking place in our society today?

The importance of "appearance impressions" in society far exceeds our imagination. Let's call this an appearance-obsessed society.

The saying "beauty has many advantages" is no longer just a women's issue; appearance impressions have also become an important factor in evaluating men. This change can be traced back ten years and has been accelerating ever since.

Until thirty years ago, Japan was an education-obsessed society. Was it junior high school graduation, high school graduation, or university graduation? And if university, which university? Education became the most basic and convincing standard for objectively evaluating a person.

Women also valued the education level of their marriage partners. This wasn't just because education directly affected their standard of living. Compared to those with lower education levels, people with higher education were considered more capable, more ambitious, more diligent, more conscientious, and more suitable to be fathers—in short, people with a brighter future.

Education became a criterion that shaped a person's entire life.

In this way, in a given era, the information that categorizes people according to their primary values ​​is called the primary label, or one's "first signboard."

A person's life has many signs: besides education, family background, job, appearance, achievements, and even past scandals. However, the first signboard is the "most important information" about an individual in that era. In an education-based society, the university one graduated from is a person's primary label; in a corporate society, the company or position one holds is a person's primary label. The primary label becomes the foundation for understanding and knowing a person. Afterward, no matter how much we learn about a person, it is all revised around the primary label.

So, what was the situation before the education-based society?

It was a family-based society, a society that used family background and status as primary labels.

This was especially true in the Edo period, where a strict social hierarchy was enforced. Even after the Meiji Restoration, the distinction between commoners and nobles remained, and family-based social hierarchy persisted.

Whether one comes from a prestigious family has become the most convincing benchmark for demonstrating personal value.

Whether one was born into the main family or into a separate family; whether one was the eldest son or the second son; whether one was born to the principal wife or a concubine—these factors not only serve as standards for evaluating a person but also determine their lifestyle.

In reality, children from well-off families generally receive a better educational environment, while children from impoverished backgrounds often struggle to raise themselves, let alone have the opportunity for education. Judging a person based on their family background is not necessarily just prejudice or bias; it does have some merit.