" Ramon Llamas, research director at market research firm IDC, said that Swiss watches personified "luxury, position and affluence.
Author Yoshizaki attributes the change to Japanese parents' over-indulgence of their children, material affluence, and growing concern for private matters.
But there is mounting evidence that, as has occurred in western countries, the link with affluence is breaking, with lower-income urban residents more prone to the problem.
The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, highlight how eating styles, and not just what or how much is eaten, can contribute to an obesity epidemic fueled by the spread of Western-style affluence in many parts of the world.
And, despite the large gap in affluence, the two groups reported about equal overall satisfaction with their lives.
The result was mass affluence rather than mass joblessness.
Even vegetables, it seems, make Chinese people plump these days: growing affluence means people can add more oil to their meals, and that's the real culprit, apparently: oil and salt-heavy foods, such as hotpot and grilled meat.
Depending where you draw the line, either I am about to enjoy the fruits of half a century of increasing affluence and entitlement, having climbed to the top of the hierarchy I help sustain; or I am entering a period of resentment about my smug elders' lockhold on the best jobs and homes and the damage they have inflicted on the environment and humankind.
No matter your circumstances, tell yourself that you deserve to have affluence in your life.
"Hello Kitty symbolises some essential Japanese virtues: agreeableness, harmony, commerce, cuteness, nature, fertility, affluence and the avoidance of aggression," he says.
Eisenhower (1890 - 1969), Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953 It is not our affluence, or our plumbing, or our clogged freeways that grip the imagination of others.
They were a rich, noble family, born in affluence and nurtured in luxury.
