It is clearly of major importance in most Asian diets.
Rice is indeed a healthy component of the diet.
It contains considerably less fat than wheat, the staple grain in this country, which probably has something to do with America's endemic weight problem and the general rarity of obesity in the rice-eating cultures of Asia. Rice also does not contain an allergenic protein as wheat does, so that allergy to it is very rare. Most Asians today eat white rice. However, in the past they probably ate whole grain or brown rice. During World War II many Japanese had to eat brown rice as a scarcity food, and that generation despises brown rice to this day.