I think it's perfectly reasonable, given the expense of health care, the expense to the government, and given that the Japanese population is aging. If they don't deal with the problem of rising obesity rates in Japan (their obesity rates put ours to shame--they're not nearly as high as ours--they're really being quite proactive), it's going to cost everyone in the long run. Obesity costs everyone, not just the person who is obese.
I wish the United States would wake up and do something like this.
It's interesting, because in doing this the Japanese have come up with a new word for someone who's overweight: metabo.
Here is a link to the NYTimes article about this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/wo...prod=permalink