TOKYO -- Tomomi Inose is overweight and diabetic. Her poor health is a result of six decades of U.S. influence on Okinawa. Until a generation ago, residents of Japan's southern island were among the world's longest-lived.
Growing up in postwar Okinawa alongside the U.S. military's largest overseas bases, she developed a bigger appetite for hamburgers and sodas than for the fish and vegetables that sustained prior generations.
"My body instinctively craves for succulent meat," Inose, 46, said at the hospital where her blood-sugar level is tested monthly to monitor the type 2 diabetes that has impaired her vision and increased her risk of heart disease.
The island that boasts more centenarians per capita than anywhere else now has the highest prevalence of obesity in Japan, and life expectancy is falling rapidly.
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