You probably aren’t going to be surprised by many of the responses…
When describing a person, “chubby” can be interpreted in a few different ways. For example, if you are talking about little kids, then it generally means they have a bit of excess weight in a pleasant or attractive way. When chubby is used to describe adults though, there’s a bit of a grey area in whether or not chubby is a good thing or bad. The Japanese language has a similarly ambiguous word, pocchari which, depending on the context and who you’re talking to, can be positive or negative.
Japan has attempted to take the word “chubby” and make it into a selling point for a number of ventures, including maid cafes and J-pop idols. Yet even with these small steps towards a more positive body images in general, there is still a significant amount of negativity surrounding the word. This become starkly apparent in a video from the YouTube series Find Your Love In Japan, where the host asks men whether or not they’d date chubby women and almost all the men interviewed say, “No.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za5g2LCN3gE
If you were angered or frustrated at any point in the video, know that you weren’t the only one. This probably isn’t limited to Japanese men though, as many guys from around the world would likely answer the question in a similar fashion, so it would be unfair to focus on these respondents exclusively. Still, it’s never pleasant to hear someone criticize other people based on how much they weigh, even when they are asked to be candidly honest.
Instead, take heart what one interviewee said, that size is completely objective and loving each other is much more important. We’d say it’s better to pick someone based on their personality rather than their looks, because those are the relationships that are more likely to last. Though we’d also say that maybe we all have better stuff to that worry about then how attractive we think others are…
Source & screenshots: YouTube/Find Your Love In Japan