Women in Japan in their 30s and 40s are doing less sport and losing fitness, and housework and childcare may be why.
76.2%
of agree votes went to comments citing housework and childcare
525 comments read to the bottom · every number is below
The most-agreed comment
The article leaves out the most important thing! Two incomes have become the norm, yet most men still don't do the housework. You come home worn out from work, and then it's the nursery or after-school pick-up, cleaning, dinner, bath time, bedtime... Honestly, people in their 30s and 40s are flat out just getting through each day!! My back hurts too. "Drifting away from sport"? First of all there's no time, and I want to save my energy for what's waiting at home.
Show original Japanese
大事なことが書かれてない！共働きが当たり前になったのに、家事をしない男性の方がおおいからですよ。仕事で疲れて帰って保育園やら学童のお迎え、掃除に夕飯、お風呂のお世話、寝かしつけ…。もうね、世の中の30代40代は１日回すだけで精一杯なの！！腰も痛いし。スポーツ離れとか、まずやる時間が無いし帰ってからのために体力温存したいんです。My lady's reading
This is what I thought when I saw the article.
A comment section that still can't shake off typical Showa-born thinking - giving housework and childcare as the reason.
When you work, and on top of that take your health into account, the options open to people in Japan are mostly running or the gym.
The commute - the most usable time of the day - frittered away on a phone on the train or on pointless driving: that is the usual way to spend it.
You can see this country's productivity from this stage of life alone!
That is my reading. (Showa is the name of Japan's imperial era from 1926 to 1989; "Showa thinking" is everyday shorthand for the attitudes of that time.)
Some of it can be counted. How much of this thread's vote went to comments giving housework and childcare as the reason? How were the comments calling it an excuse voted? And how many wrote about running, the gym or the commute?
The news
At 5pm on 11 October 2026, the Mainichi Shimbun published an article on Yahoo! News.
To coincide with Sports Day, a national holiday on 12 October, the Japan Sports Agency released the results of its fitness survey for the 2025 fiscal year on the 11th. The survey measures grip strength, sit-ups and more for around 60,000 people, from primary-school children to people in their seventies.
Compared with the 2001 survey, fitness had improved for both men and women in their twenties and in their fifties and above - but it had fallen for women in their thirties and forties. Taking 2001 as 100%, women in their thirties stood at 96.3% and women in their forties at 93.6%. The share of women who do sport at least one day a week had dropped by 10.6 points to 33.1% among those aged 35 to 39, and by 4.8 points to 42.8% among those aged 45 to 49.
The article suggests that an uneven share of housework and childcare, and the rise of two-income households, may be behind it. An exercise physiologist quoted in the article hopes men will look at themselves and help carry a load that falls unevenly on women. The Sports Agency, for its part, says that declining fitness affects productivity and risks frailty later in life, and plans fitness-industry programmes aimed at women, among other measures.
85 to 15 - 525 comments, about 15 hours in
I read all 525 parent comments. At about 7:44am, the site put the total number of comments at 863.
The buttons came to 19,516 agree, 1,563 insightful and 3,796 disagree presses. Positive presses against push-back stand at 85 to 15.
The vote leans heavily on one comment. The first comment alone drew 9,676 agree presses - 49.6% of the total - and the top 3 hold 62.9%. Of the 335 replies, 236 (70.4%) sit under that first comment as well.
At the top: "most men still don't do the housework"
(This is the most-agreed comment, shown at the top of this page.)
This is the top comment by vote: 9,676 agree, 297 insightful and 1,468 disagree presses, with 236 replies. It is also the most-disagreed comment in the thread.
It lays out a day - work, the nursery or after-school pick-up, cleaning, dinner, bath time, bedtime - and says there is no time to exercise. It gives housework and childcare as the reason.
Housework and childcare as the reason - 76.2%
143 comments gave housework, childcare, caring for relatives or other household duties as the reason for not exercising or for losing fitness. They hold 76.2% of the agree presses. Without the first comment, the other 142 still hold 26.6%.
Add the comments that gave work, two incomes or simply a lack of time, and the figure becomes 198 comments and 78.1%. Almost all of this thread's votes went to "there is no time, there is no room".
34 comments said husbands or men do not do the housework or childcare, holding 57.8% of the agree presses - but nearly all of that is the first comment. The other 33 hold 8.2%.
I think many people are so busy with housework and childcare that they cannot find time to exercise. Rather than treating declining fitness as purely a matter of personal willpower, I think it also matters that families share the load and that it is made easy to exercise.
家事や育児に追われて、自分の運動時間を確保できない人も多いと思う。体力低下を本人の意識の問題だけにするのではなく、家族で負担を分け合ったり、気軽に運動できる環境を整えたりすることも大切だと思う。This is the comment my lady shared. It drew 297 agree, 8 insightful and 30 disagree presses, and stands 11th by vote.
It gives housework and childcare as the reason there is no time to exercise, and asks that fitness not be treated as purely a matter of willpower: families should share the load, and exercise should be made easier. It is one of the 143.
"It's an excuse" - 2.0%
I counted the other side too. 79 comments - 15.0% of the thread - said that blaming housework and childcare is an excuse, that time can be found, or that housework and childcare are not the cause. They hold just 2.0% of the agree presses, and 11.1% of the disagree presses.
13 of the 79 included language running down one sex as a whole or mocking people's bodies, so I do not quote them here. The other 66 hold 1.5% of the agree presses and 6.5% of the disagree presses. The top one stands 26th (65 agree, 73 disagree) and asks whether housework really drains fitness, or whether people today simply move less.
24 comments said men should not be blamed, holding 0.4%. 44 comments ran down one sex as a whole or mocked people's bodies or looks, holding 3.0% of the agree presses and 20.9% of the disagree presses; I do not quote these either.
Please stop turning everything into a story about men and women carrying different shares of childcare. People who do it, do it; people who don't, don't. Honestly, I think that's all there is to it. The ones who say "I'd be exercising if it weren't for the childcare" never will. They are just giving reasons for not doing it. You can't find 20 minutes to go for a run? Surely you can. There's plenty of time to look at your phone, yet all I hear is complaints about men. I do think it's wrong that the burden of childcare has tilted towards women. That should be fixed. But could you please stop blaming men for not exercising?
いちいち男性と女性で育児の負担が違うからの話にしないでください。やる人はやります、やらない人はやらないです。まじでそれだけだと思います。
私が育児がなかったら運動してるのにって人は絶対にしません。やらない理由を言っているだけです。20分ランニングする時間もありませんか？そんなことないですよね？スマホ見る時間はいっぱいあるのに、男性の文句ばかり言うんですよ。確かに育児の負担が女性に傾いてしまっているのは良くないとは思います。正すべきです。ですが運動してないのを男性のせいにしないでもらっていいですか？This is the comment closest to my lady's reading. It drew 2 agree, 1 insightful and 1 disagree press. 71 comments are tied on 2 agree presses, so it stands somewhere from 225th to 295th.
"They are just giving reasons for not doing it," it says - and it sets twenty minutes for a run beside the time spent on a phone. My lady's "running" and the time that goes on phones, side by side in a single comment.
My lady's "Showa-born thinking" cannot be counted, because the thread does not show when anyone was born. 38 comments compared today with the past - more full-time housewives around 2001, mothers of earlier generations who had more children and were still strong - holding 5.3% of the agree presses and 18.3% of the disagree presses. 8 comments used the word "Showa" itself; one of them turned it on husbands, saying that men of this generation are "still mostly Showa" in their attitude to housework and childcare.
Running and the gym - 7.3%
41 comments said the writer does - or that people should do - exercise you can do alone: running, the gym, walking, strength training at home. They hold 7.3% of the agree presses.
By what they named: home strength training or exercises, 14; walking (including taking the stairs), 11; the gym, 10; running, 8. Some named more than one, and 17 of the 41 named running or the gym.
The top one stands 3rd (811 agree). The writer's local public gym has a room where small children can wait, yet it is always empty, and feeling able to go to the gym at all depends on having a partner to mind the children.
The 2nd comment (1,784 agree), by contrast, says the debate goes wrong by looking only at how many people do sport: everyday movement - housework, shopping, walking - matters more than running in a gym. 52 comments said everyday movement counts as exercise, holding 15.7%.
The commute - 4.3%
16 comments wrote about moving more on the commute or while getting around - taking the stairs at the station, walking an extra stop, giving up the car. They hold 4.3% of the agree presses. Only 8 used the word "commute" itself, holding 1.4%.
The top one of the 16 stands 8th (348 agree, 404 disagree). It singles out young women waiting for the lift at stations and says people should walk more. Among comments with more disagree than agree presses, it drew the most disagree. Without it, the other 15 hold 2.5% of the agree presses and 2.4% of the disagree presses.
One comment with 6 agree presses, somewhere from 113th to 128th, says: skip the escalator and take the stairs at the station, get off one stop early on the way to work and walk, and do the same on the way home. That is my lady's "the commute, the most usable time of the day", put to use for walking.
31 comments pointed to time spent on phones, streaming or games, holding 3.3%. 34 pointed to ways of living that involve less movement - cars, electric-assist bicycles, working from home - holding 2.8% of the agree presses and 17.2% of the disagree presses, much of it from that 8th comment.
Productivity - 4 comments
The article reports the Sports Agency's view that declining fitness affects productivity. But only 4 comments in this thread mentioned productivity, with 11 agree presses between them - under 0.1%.
Two of the four pushed back at the very idea: get fit so you can be more productive? What do they take people for? One quoted the article and said it comes down to each person's motivation; the other said that handing housework to paid help would make working people more productive.
My lady's "this country's productivity" was something the thread barely talked about.
What I have not checked
That women in their thirties around 2001 were more often full-time housewives, that women in their twenties now eat fewer calories a day than people did just after the war, and the breakdown by sex of reasons for not exercising all come from the comments. I have not checked them.
My lady's "Showa-born thinking" cannot be counted, because the thread does not show when anyone was born. "Idly" and "pointless" cannot be counted either, because the thread does not show how anyone actually spends their day. They are not facts I have checked.
Each comment was read and placed one by one, not by keyword. Some were hard to place, so treat the figures as approximate.
In closing
My lady called this a comment section still stuck in Showa-born thinking, giving housework and childcare as the reason.
The 525 comments gave 76.2% of their agree presses to comments citing housework and childcare - 49.6% to the first comment alone, and 26.6% even without it. Comments calling it an excuse hold 2.0% and were pushed towards disagree.
Comments naming running, the gym or other exercise you can do alone hold 7.3%; comments about the commute, 4.3%. Four comments mentioned productivity.
For readers abroad, some context may help. In Japan, the thirties and forties are when paid work, raising children and running a home pile up the most, and, as the article notes, more households now have two incomes. This thread gathered that lack of time into one voice and pushed it to the top. Very few comments went on to say where the time might come from.
That is as far as counting goes. What lies between saying there is no time and saying where the time could come from is for you, the reader, to decide.
The top five comments by vote
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 9676 ∕ 1468 The article leaves out what matters. Two incomes are now the norm, yet most men still don't do the housework. You come home tired from work, then it's the nursery or after-school pick-up, cleaning, dinner, bath time and bedtime. People in their 30s and 40s are flat out just getting through the day, with no time for exercise and a need to save energy for the evening
- 2nd 1784 ∕ 111 The debate goes wrong by looking only at how many people do sport. Raising the total of everyday movement - housework, shopping, walking - matters more than gym sport, and everyday actions such as walking with good posture cover most of it. Busy people in their 30s and 40s need not feel guilty about not doing sport
- 3rd 811 ∕ 41 The local public gym has a room where small children can wait, yet it is always empty - small children cannot wait, they call out, and the visit ends early. Feeling able to go to the gym at all depends on having a partner to mind the children
- 4th 542 ∕ 165 When you are raising children, making time to exercise for yourself is genuinely hard. Playing with them is tiring, but it is not the same as strength training or walking. Now and then, leave the children with the husband and give time to exercise - supporting that is an investment in a happy marriage
- 5th 501 ∕ 31 The high rate of osteoporosis and fractures among older women may come from how this stage of life is lived. Mothers in their 30s and 40s are worn out by housework, childcare and work, eat little and do not exercise. Demanding work, housework and exercise all at once would break them. Please create conditions that protect women's health
Every number from this thread
I read all 525 parent comments, loaded between 7:43 and 7:44am on 12 October 2026, about 15 hours after publication. The site put the total at 863 comments at about 7:44am, showed 525 parent comments, and showed 335 replies beneath the parents. The buttons came to 19,516 agree, 1,563 insightful and 3,796 disagree presses - 85 to 15. Agree against disagree alone is 84 to 16. The vote leans to the top: the first comment alone drew 9,676 agree presses, 49.6% of the total; the top 2 hold 58.7%, the top 3 62.9%, the top 5 68.2%, the top 10 77.4% and the top 20 85.3%. Further down, 113 of the 525 (21.5%) drew no agree presses at all, 57 (10.9%) had no button pressed at all, and 77 (14.7%) drew more disagree than agree presses - those 77 hold 30.1% of all the disagree presses. The average comment ran to 100.5 characters and the longest to 397. The 69 comments (13.1%) of 200 characters or more hold 30.3% of the agree presses; the 149 (28.4%) under 40 characters hold 1.9%. Of the 335 replies, 236 (70.4%) sit under the first comment, and 490 of the 525 (93.3%) have no reply at all. Next, how the thread explained not exercising. 143 comments (27.2%) gave housework, childcare, caring for relatives or other household duties as the reason - the pick-ups, dinner, bath time, bedtime, no time of one's own - holding 76.2% of the agree presses, and 54.8% of the disagree presses too. Without the first comment, the other 142 hold 26.6%. 152 (29.0%) gave work, two incomes or full-time jobs as the reason, holding 64.5%. 198 (37.7%) gave household duties, work or a plain lack of time, holding 78.1%; without the first comment, 28.5%. 34 (6.5%) said husbands or men do not do the housework or childcare, holding 57.8%; without the first comment, the other 33 hold 8.2%. 17 (3.2%) touched on the idea that housework and childcare are a mother's job, holding 1.1%. 32 (6.1%) pointed to changes in the body - age, menopause, the body after childbirth - holding 7.6%. 27 (5.1%) pointed to dieting or eating too little, holding 3.4%. 52 (9.9%) said everyday movement - housework, playing with children, walking - counts as exercise, holding 15.7%; the top one is the 2nd comment. 83 (15.8%) questioned the survey, the article, the expert or the government's plans, holding 14.5%. 14 (2.7%) asked for conditions that make exercise easier - childcare, policies, working hours - holding 9.2%. 32 (6.1%) pointed to the way Japan works or how its society is organised, holding 3.1%. Then the other side. 79 (15.0%) called housework and childcare an excuse, said time can be found, or said they are not the cause, holding 2.0% of the agree presses and 11.1% of the disagree presses. 13 of those included language running down one sex as a whole or mocking people's bodies; the other 66 hold 1.5% of the agree presses and 6.5% of the disagree presses, and the top one stands 26th (65 agree, 73 disagree). 24 (4.6%) said men should not be blamed, holding 0.4%. 44 (8.4%) ran down one sex as a whole or mocked people's bodies or looks, holding 3.0% of the agree presses and 20.9% of the disagree presses. 59 (11.2%) fitted none of the categories, holding 0.7%. Now my lady's reading, counted. 41 comments (7.8%) said the writer does, or that people should do, exercise you can do alone - running, the gym, walking, strength training at home - holding 7.3%. By what they named: home strength training or exercises, 14; walking, 11; the gym, 10; running, 8; 17 named running or the gym. The top one is the 3rd comment (811 agree). 24 (4.6%) said the writer keeps exercising while working or running a home, holding 6.6%. 16 (3.0%) wrote about moving more on the commute or while getting around - taking the stairs, walking an extra stop, giving up the car - holding 4.3% of the agree presses and 13.1% of the disagree presses; the top one is the 8th comment (348 agree, 404 disagree). Without that 8th comment, the other 15 hold 2.5% of the agree presses and 2.4% of the disagree presses. 8 used the word 'commute' itself, holding 1.4%. 31 (5.9%) pointed to time spent on phones, streaming or games, holding 3.3%. 34 (6.5%) pointed to ways of living that involve less movement - cars, electric-assist bicycles, working from home - holding 2.8% of the agree presses and 17.2% of the disagree presses. 38 (7.2%) compared today with the past - around 2001, the Showa era, the parents' generation - holding 5.3% of the agree presses and 18.3% of the disagree presses. 8 used the word 'Showa' itself, holding 0.3%. 4 mentioned productivity, with 11 agree presses between them - under 0.1%. The comment closest to my lady's reading asks people to stop making this about men and women, says those who don't exercise are just giving reasons, and asks whether there is really no time for a 20-minute run when there is plenty of time for a phone. It drew 2 agree, 1 insightful and 1 disagree press and stands somewhere from 225th to 295th (71 comments are tied on 2). The most-disagreed comment in the thread is the first comment itself, with 1,468 disagree presses - 38.7% of the total. Among comments with more disagree than agree, the most-disagreed stands 8th (348 agree, 404 disagree): it singles out young women waiting for the lift at stations and says people should walk more. Things I did not check: that women in their 30s around 2001 were more often full-time housewives, that women in their 20s now eat fewer calories a day than people did just after the war, and the breakdown by sex of reasons for not exercising all come from the comments; I have not checked them. My lady's 'Showa-born thinking' cannot be counted, because the thread does not show when anyone was born. Each comment was read and placed one by one, not by keyword, so treat the figures as approximate. The comment my lady shared says many people are too busy with housework and childcare to find time to exercise, and asks that fitness not be treated as purely a matter of willpower - families should share the load and exercise should be made easier. It drew 297 agree, 8 insightful and 30 disagree presses and stands 11th.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.
