Japans nutrition white paper

At a Cabinet meeting last week the Japanese government approved a white paper on food education, which emphasizes the importance of proper nutrition and warns that healthy dietary habits are disappearing in their country.

So, what type of advice do you think this report offered? Here are some of the guesses I’d expect to hear from Americans:

* Cut back on eating fast food
* Limit intake of saturated fat found in animal products
* Eat more fruits and vegetables
* Decrease salt intake
* Cut back on consumption of processed carbohydrates

Isn’t this what you’d expect? The Japanese report is about proper nutrition so the advice is likely to be about WHAT foods to eat, right?

If that’s what you thought, you’d be wrong.

What did the white paper emphasize instead? — families eating dinner together and children eating breakfast.

See, in a government survey conducted in 2004, just 25.9% of families said they ate dinner together every day, down from 36.5% in 1976. And, a similar survey taken in 2000 found that almost 20% of fifth graders did not eat or rarely ate breakfast.

The government viewed these statistics as a national problem and set out to do something about it. In other words, they decided the problem was in HOW people were eating not WHAT they were eating.

Whereas American nutrition goals are set around limiting the consumption of certain foods, the Japanese goals are to have families eat together and have all children eat breakfast. In fact, the white paper suggests promoting food education at home with the simple slogan of “Early to bed, early to rise, and eat breakfast!”

The Japanese get it.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness