A widespread health crisis served as a wake-up call to many people’s own personal health crises.

With the coronavirus pandemic dragging on throughout the year, even talk of a “new normal” seems to have gotten old. The fact is that everyone is dealing with the situation in their own ways, from discovering new hobbies to holding milestones in life on Minecraft, and it will be a while before the true “new normal” all this creates becomes fully understood.

But one promising sign has come from a survey by insurance company Meiji Yasuda Life, asking 5,640 married men and women how their health has changed since before COVID-19 dominated daily life. Of them, a surprising 48.1 percent said that they now feel either healthier or slightly healthier.

▼ Who knows how many of those people were helped by Mr. Sato’s home stretching routine?

Moreover, a further 49.1 percent reported no significant change to their health, while a very small 2.8 percent claimed that their health had gotten worse since society changed. There are likely a wide variety of reasons for this but according to the survey this trend was a reaction to weight gain in the early weeks of the state-of-emergency, when people were advised to work from home and not go out needlessly.

In fact, 45.1 of all respondents said they became more aware of their own health because of early corona weight gain and took steps to improve themselves. Most popular methods were through diet (50.9 percent), exercise (35.5 percent), and avoiding stress (22.8 percent). Also, six percent of respondents said they’ve cut down on drinking, which is rather large for a country with a notorious fondness for booze.

▼ Who knows how many of those drinkers were helped by Mr. Sato’s routine of inhaling plum wine fumes from a humidifier?

It’s promising data, but some online beg to differ, saying they haven’t been reaping the benefits of the current state of affairs.

“I got fat lol.”
“I guess I’m one of the two percent…”
“I’ve been peeing more often.”
“I also gained about 10 kilos and can’t fit in my pants.”
“People are getting healthier thanks to the coronavirus… Was normal life that bad?!”
“I lost my job and became healthy. Work is the worst toxin.”
“I’ve been balding.”
“My mental state feels fully recovered from being with my family. I think excessive relationships are a cause of ill health.”
“Now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I caught a cold.”

Some of the comments, along with the fact that this survey only covers married people, would suggest some sort of familial support is likely connected to these results. Hopefully, a similar survey could be conducted on single adults and youths to see how their health habits have been affected too.

We’ve seen some evidence that student baseball players have been thriving under self-training conditions, so the situation might be relatively good for the youth of Japan as well.

▼ Who knows how many of those kids were helped by Mr. Sato’s self-training method to become a champion pole dancer?

Whatever the case may be, it’s good to see at least a sizeable chunk of the population minding their health. We’re going to need the energy when the army of the undead is released by Shizuoka City in a few days.

Source: Nikkei, My Game News Flash
Top image: Pakutaso
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