French women may not get fat. But it’s Japanese women who live longest and rarely need face-lifts. MORE investigates.
When I was in Tokyo recently, I kept meeting attractive women who appeared to be in their late twenties. Then they’d tell me about the difficulties of raising teenagers or what they’d learned about careers over the past 20 years, and I’d calculate that they had to be closer to 40. I thought these women had all won the genetic lottery—until I met California native Tiffany Godoy, who moved to Japan 12 years ago and never left. While living in Asia and reporting on the fashion scene, Godoy has adopted many Japanese habits and says she’s noticed a significant difference in her complexion. Looking at her now, as she approaches 40, I would have guessed she was 10 years younger. Clearly, there’s something in the water (or the tofu). And as I asked—and looked— around, it became clear Godoy was no exception. You don’t have to be Japanese to age as well as they do. You just need to steal some of their diet, lifestyle and skin care strategies.
In her book Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat, Naomi Moriyama describes her native country as a land “where 40-year-old women look like they’re 20. It is a land where women enjoy some of the world’s most delicious food, yet they have obesity rates of only three percent . . . less than one tenth that of American women.” Moriyama credits the Japanese diet: small dishes jam-packed with nutrients from fish, soy, rice, vegetables and fruit. Rice, especially, “is thought to contribute to better skin,” she says. “There is even a Japanese phrase for soft, supple skin: mochi-hada, or skin that resembles mochi, a moist rice cake.”
Jessica Wu, MD, a cosmetic dermatologist in Los Angeles whose parents are from Taiwan, grew up on a traditional Chinese diet (which has a lot in common with Japan’s), and she believes it’s the soy that plays the biggest antiaging role. “As a child, I drank soy milk exclusively. My mother made it fresh every day. And instead of meat and dairy, we ate a lot of tofu.” Wu cites science to back up her theory: Soy has been shown to help combat acne and to lessen such menopausal side effects as dry skin.
The Japanese fondness for green tea probably also helps slow the aging process. People guzzle this antioxidant-rich drink all day (rather than the vats of coffee, juice and Diet Coke we prefer in the U.S.). And antioxidants, of course, combat the free radicals (triggered by sun exposure and pollution) that break down collagen in our skin and cause wrinkling and sagging.
What the Japanese don’t consume may also play a role in the countless clear complexions I saw in Tokyo. Only about 10 percent of the women smoke, and they eat few processed sugars. “Growing up in L.A., I got orange slices for dessert, never a brownie,” Wu says. “In fact, I’m the only one of my cousins who suffered from acne as a teenager, and my mother is convinced it’s from the junk food I sneaked at school. We never got that at home.” According to recent studies, excessive amounts of sugar trigger inflammation, which exacerbates acne and can set off a breakdown in collagen. (For more information on this topic, read “Is Sugar Aging You?”)
If you’ve been to Japan (or to a major metropolis where you see Japanese tourists), you’ve probably noticed women walking under umbrellas on sunny days. Japanese women “are fanatical about protecting their skin from the sun,” says Susan Taylor, MD, a dermatologist in Philadelphia. An African-American herself, Taylor specializes in skin of color. “My Japanese patients loathe brown spots and understand they come from the sun,” Taylor says.
People of all skin colors develop brown spots eventually, unless they protect themselves, but Japanese women get them sooner—as early as in their twenties. The reason? Compared with Caucasians, their skin has more melanin (pigment), so the spots can become quite dark, Taylor says. On the other hand, compared with African-Americans, they have less melanin, and since melanin can also act as a natural sunscreen, the Japanese are more susceptible to sun damage than darker-skinned people. To combat this propensity for spotting, many mothers slather their babies with sunscreen from birth, says Yuko Hoshino, a skin care specialist and trainer for Shiseido in Tokyo. As a result, the women not only suffer fewer dark spots as adults, Taylor says, they also get fewer wrinkles, because most of the lines we get in our forties and fifties are caused primarily by earlier UV damage.
