It is often said that the child fitness is on a downtrend. To what extent and why has it declined? What measures are being implemented against this problem?

According to the “Physical Strength and Motor Fitness Survey” conducted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), child fitness is on a downtrend despite the fact that the physiques of children (aged 11 in FY2002) are improving compared with those of their parents’ generation (aged 11 in FY1972 [30 years ago]).

In a report made on September 30, 2002, entitled “Comprehensive Measures to Improve Child Fitness,” the Central Council for Education pointed out the following factors as main contributors to the decline in child fitness.

1) Citizens, notably parents and guardians, no longer encourage children to play outside or play sports because they are not very aware of the importance of these activities.

2) In the environment surrounding children:

- Lives become more convenient, which has led to a sedentary lifestyle for children.

- Present children have less time, smaller space, and fewer friends, which are all essential elements for playing sports and playing outside.

- There is a lack of instructors who can give appropriate instruction according to children's development stages.

- Schools do not give sufficient instruction to enable children to enjoy doing exercises because there are no experienced or specialist teachers.

People are concerned about a disturbance of children’s eating habits such as the increase in the number of children who skip breakfast. What measures is MEXT implementing against these problems?

The changes that have taken place in recent years in the social environment connected with eating habits have disrupted the eating habits of children, resulting in unbalanced diets and the skipping of breakfasts. For example, according to the “FY2000 Survey on the Eating Habits of Schoolchildren,” only 80% or so of elementary and junior high school students regularly eat breakfast. Also, according to “National Nutrition Survey 1997”, 32.7% of senior high school students were in the habit of skipping breakfast. It is important to encourage children to have proper eating habits to ensure a healthy life in the future.

To this end, it is necessary for children to have proper knowledge about diets and to learn to determine for themselves how to ensure that their meals

are nutritious. At schools, instruction on diets is given comprehensively at lunchtime, in home economics and physical education classes, during homeroom activities, and in the hours for integrated study. MEXT supports these measures at schools by creating and distributing teaching materials on eating habits.

To provide children with the proper knowledge about diets, it is necessary to improve the quality of the teachers who give instruction on diets. MEXT therefore provides these teachers with the latest information and holds seminars and symposiums for teachers to exchange opinions on various diet-related themes.

Under the diet and nutrition teacher license system to be implemented in FY2005, diet and nutrition teachers, as specialists both in education and in nutrition, will play a leading role in giving guidance on diet at schools and will be committed to doing the following.