TOKYO - A life insurance company survey released Thursday revealed Japanese people aspire to live a healthy life for much longer than official data show they actually do.
The survey, conducted by Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co., showed a sample of 5,640 married men and women between the age of 20 and 79 "want to" live a healthy life for 81.50 years, more than six years longer than the 74.81 years that is the reality, as shown in World Health Organization data from 2016.
The ideal "healthy life expectancy," or the average period a person can live without requiring nursing or becoming bedridden, Japanese men hope for is 81.90. Women want to reach 81.10 before they require assistance.
But data show they are overly optimistic, with 2016 government figures revealing the actual average ages people need assistance are 72.14 and 74.79 for men and women, respectively.
Two out of three people answered in the survey that they do not exercise or do sports daily and, on average, they ideally try to sleep for seven and a half hours, but they only manage six hours and 20 minutes in reality.
Being busy was a major reason given for the lack of exercise and shorter than desired sleeping time.
"There is a dilemma faced by people who cannot afford sleeping time and exercise as they are being driven by work and household chores," said a Meiji Yasuda official.
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