(Apparently so, since I just dug out the link, but I read it so long ago that back when I read it it was not called that at all.)
It's not different body types really, it's diet. They have limited land space for farming over in Japan, so they don't have access to many foods like we do. Milk, for instance, is not commonplace at all since there's just not enough space to raise milk cows. Heck, cows in general are a rarity that you'll pay an arm and a leg to be able to eat a steak from. In any case, if you've ever seen second or even third generation Asians raised in North America, they look very different from the people they came from. Sometimes smallness is inherited (I inherited my petite proportions from a great-grandfather, while the rest of my siblings did not and have more normal proportions), but it's amazing how even just growing up eating different foods will affect a person's body.
Case in point, we had a Filipino family in our ward way back when (the parents have since moved back to help the family they left behind). The mother and father both grew up over there. The mother was especially small due to malnourishment as a child. It wasn't intentional, they didn't have access to a lot thus her body didn't grow beyond what it could handle on a limited diet. The husband wasn't any taller than his wife. But when they came to the U.S. to raise their children, all of the children grew up big and healthy, more on par with a 'normal' American citizen.
Heck, my Korean-born but American-raised coworker actually carries a lot more weight around than I do, this despite her Asian heritage. Access to more and better food does that to a person. ^_-;
You can compare different cultures to each other, but it's really important to know the factors behind each. No matter where you go, access to more varieties of food is always going to result in a more healthy build. Heck, if I was raised on a typical Japanese diet of rice and soup, you better believe I'd be a lot thinner than I am having been raised on things like wheat, milk, and meat.
Long ramble aside, I'd not heard about Japanese girls/women being pressured into being small sizes. Last I heard, the Japanese in general were coming to realize their small stature was due to lack of certain food types in their diet and were working to change that. For all I know, that might have been tossed out the window when Japan's economy started flailing. Plus, old habits die hard. I'd not blame men so much as society as a whole for not realizing change is always going to happen.
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It's not different body types really, it's diet. They have limited land space for farming over in Japan, so they don't have access to many foods like we do. Milk, for instance, is not commonplace at all since there's just not enough space to raise milk cows. Heck, cows in general are a rarity that you'll pay an arm and a leg to be able to eat a steak from. In any case, if you've ever seen second or even third generation Asians raised in North America, they look very different from the people they came from. Sometimes smallness is inherited (I inherited my petite proportions from a great-grandfather, while the rest of my siblings did not and have more normal proportions), but it's amazing how even just growing up eating different foods will affect a person's body.
Case in point, we had a Filipino family in our ward way back when (the parents have since moved back to help the family they left behind). The mother and father both grew up over there. The mother was especially small due to malnourishment as a child. It wasn't intentional, they didn't have access to a lot thus her body didn't grow beyond what it could handle on a limited diet. The husband wasn't any taller than his wife. But when they came to the U.S. to raise their children, all of the children grew up big and healthy, more on par with a 'normal' American citizen.
Heck, my Korean-born but American-raised coworker actually carries a lot more weight around than I do, this despite her Asian heritage. Access to more and better food does that to a person. ^_-;
You can compare different cultures to each other, but it's really important to know the factors behind each. No matter where you go, access to more varieties of food is always going to result in a more healthy build. Heck, if I was raised on a typical Japanese diet of rice and soup, you better believe I'd be a lot thinner than I am having been raised on things like wheat, milk, and meat.
Long ramble aside, I'd not heard about Japanese girls/women being pressured into being small sizes. Last I heard, the Japanese in general were coming to realize their small stature was due to lack of certain food types in their diet and were working to change that. For all I know, that might have been tossed out the window when Japan's economy started flailing. Plus, old habits die hard. I'd not blame men so much as society as a whole for not realizing change is always going to happen.